“It disproportionately impacts low-income and other vulnerable taxpayers,
and despite two attempts at making it work, the program has lost money both times, undermining the sole rationale for its existence.”
In years past, Ms. Olson said, the outside collectors employed by the government used psychological tricks
that may have coerced some debtors into payments they could not afford.
says that delinquent taxpayers whose accounts are turned over to the private collection agencies will have already received many letters by mail from the agency, urging them to pay and warning them
that the debt would be turned over to a third party for collection.
Enlists Debt Collectors to Recover Overdue Taxes -
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and STACY COWLEYAPRIL 20, 2017
The Internal Revenue Service is about to start using four private debt-collection companies to chase down overdue payments
from hundreds of thousands of people who owe money to the federal government, a job it has handled in house for years.
According to a study by the I. R.S.’s Taxpayer Advocate Service, which Ms. Olson runs, the last time the agency used outside collectors
— from 2006 to 2009 — the companies collected a net amount of around $86 million while pursuing $1.6 billion in debt.
would engage it nonetheless to be its agent in debt collection is just stunning.”
declined to comment on its selection of Pioneer, which along with CBE was one of the three outside companies the agency used in 2006.
