Washington, D.C. - Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about a provision tucked into this bill that has not gotten a lot of attention, but it should grab the attention of anyone who cares about fair treatment of the American taxpayer.
I just take you back to 1998 when, in response to concerns about overly aggressive IRS collection tactics against individual taxpayers, this Congress, the House and the Senate, passed the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act. That act specifically prevented IRS agents and their supervisors from being evaluated or rewarded based on the amount of tax revenues they collect.
The reason for that was pretty simple and straightforward. We wanted to make sure that those agents treat taxpayers fairly and objectively. We wanted to make sure they did not have a personal stake, financial stake, in how much they collected and the outcome of disputes with taxpayers. We did not want to turn them into bounty hunters.
Well, take a look at this bill. This bill has a provision that will authorize private contractors and private debt collectors to go out and collect the tax revenues of taxpayers and get a commission on it. They get to pocket that tax money, and they get a commission based on how much they collect from the taxpayer, and that is money that goes into their pockets, not into the public Treasury to spend on the public good.
I do not think anybody in this body focused on this issue on either side of the aisle. I think it is going to be tough to go back home and explain how you unleashed these private debts collectors on the American taxpayer.
I will say, when the Treasury appropriations bill was on this floor just a few weeks ago, by a voice vote, this body said, we cannot spend money for the purpose of private debt collection. The body was right then, we were right back in 1998 when we passed the IRS Restructuring Act, and it is a mistake to reverse that policy and unleash private debt collectors on taxpayers and let them pocket the money, rather than have those funds go into the public Treasury for the public good.