As every American taxpayer knows, today is “Tax Day,” or the final day for individuals and families to file taxes without incurring financial penalties. But today also marks an opportunity for Congress to promote fairness in tax obligations.

Due to an estimated $345 billion in unpaid taxes, the average taxpayer who plays by the rules pays an extra $2,700 every year to cover the taxes not being paid by others. American taxpayers should rightly be outraged with bearing the consequences of tax evaders and expect their government to use every effective resource to enforce tax law fairness.

To address the growing backlog of unpaid tax debt, in 2004 Congress authorized the IRS to utilize the best practices and advantages created by the private sector by contracting out collection authority for smaller “old and cold” tax evasion cases.

Since its creation, this program has already brought in over $30 million of uncollected taxes, receiving a 98% rating from the IRS for regulatory and procedural accuracy and a 100% rating for professionalism. Last year, the IRS reported that the nearly 51,000 “Cold Cases” given to private agencies have resulted in over 5,300 full repayments to the Treasury and almost 2,000 incremental debt repayment agreements, providing the government with over $24 million in gross revenue that it would not have otherwise received.

Unfortunately for taxpayers, House Democrats want to kill the program before it has an additional opportunity to succeed, revoking the IRS’ contract collection authority through the “Taxpayer Assistance and Simplification Act” (H.R. 5719) on the House floor today.

The supposed reason is to protect the dues of big Government Union Bosses. But the truth is the IRS receives the first 25 cents of every new tax dollar collected under the program to hire new collections professionals, building on the IRS’ public statements that no government employee will lose his or her job as a result of this highly-efficient private contracting. In fact, IRS employees benefit from the opportunity to focus their talent, expertise and resources on higher priority, more complex cases.

Unable to prove the job loss argument, opponents claim that this is something only the government can do. But the truth is that 40 out of the 50 States in America already contract out these services.

Last night in the Rules Committee, I offered an amendment to strike this unfortunate provision in today’s bill. While the Democrat Majority unsurprisingly defeated my amendment along a party-line vote, I will continue to support this effective tax collection program on behalf of taxpayers who play by the rules and deserve fairness and certainty in their tax obligations today.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm and is filed under Politics, Economy/Budget .