The Internal Revenue Service is planning on doubling the number of employees dedicated to its program of outsourcing debts to four private collection agencies during the 2020 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, according to a report released yesterday by Sen. Chuck Grassley [R-Iowa], the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Doubling the workforce dedicated toward the private debt collection program will mean an additional 100 employees working in the IRS’s Special Compliance Personnel Program.
“Data continue to show that the Private Debt Collection program is working,” Sen. Grassley said in a statement. “This is the most recent in a series of reports that have given me confidence in the program’s ability to make the system fairer for law-abiding citizens while also strengthening the effectiveness of the IRS.”
Through the first three months of the 2019 fiscal year, the four private collection agencies had already recovered half of what they were able to collect during the entire 2018 fiscal year.
Congress recently passed a bill that, among other changes at the IRS, will change the type of unpaid income tax debts that can be placed with private collection agencies. After reports that the IRS was targeting low-income individuals in the private debt collection program, Congress established a floor, saying that the IRS will not be allowed to place unpaid tax debts with an agency for individuals who earn less than 200% of the federal poverty line.
