Lawmaker asks IRS to suspend hiring debt collection contractors
Leader of Ways and Means panel notes IRS opted against renewing one of three contracts it awarded last year.
House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is urging the Internal Revenue Service to suspend its process of hiring new private contractors to collect tax debts.
In a letter Thursday to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Rangel said he planned to move legislation later this year to repeal or significantly alter IRS' authority to contract out some of its debt collection to private entities. That authority was granted under the GOP-controlled Congress in 2004.
In the meantime, Rangel advised Everson not to move forward with a process to award at least three new contracts by October 2007. Rangel noted that IRS opted not to renew at least one of three contracts it awarded last year and said the Ways and Means panel is looking into "numerous complaints from taxpayers about the tactics used by contract employees and instances of violations of law."
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., has introduced a bill in the House to repeal IRS' private debt collection authority.