Date: 2004-09-15
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I commend my colleague. the gentlewoman from West Virginia . for offering this very important amendment to ensure the fair treatment of the American taxpayer. Mr. Chairman. it was just back in 1998. in response to concerns over overlyaggressive IRS collection tactics against individual taxpayers. that the Congress passed the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act. That act specifically prevents IRS agents and their supervisors from being evaluated or rewarded based on the amount of tax revenues they bring in or that they collect. And the reason for that was very simple and straightforward: We want to make sure that IRS agents treat taxpayers fairly and with respect and that they look at each situation objectively. We wanted to make sure they did not have a personal financial stake in the outcome of one of their disputes for the taxpayer. We should not turn IRS agents into bounty hunters for their own personal profit. Well. now let us fast forward to this year. In the corporate tax legislation that we considered earlier this year. the FSC/ETI bill. there was tucked in a provision that wQuld authorize private contractors to take up these collection efforts and directly benefit on a commission basis by how much they collect. How quickly we forget. This is a direct contradiction to the policy this Congress took back in 1998 when we said we are not going to allow our Federal civil servants to do this. But. hey. it is okay to turn it over to private contractors and turn them into bounty hunters. Now. it is true. as the chairman of the subcommittee said. that that is not current law yet. But that bill is in the conference committee right now with that provision that this House passed. I do not think many Members of this House realized. who voted for that bill. when they passed that corporate tax bill. they passed a provision that would empower private collection agents to go out and collect taxes and personally profit based on the amount of taxes they collect. these same individuals who. in -1998. voted to prevent public civil servants at the IRS from doing it. This Congress was right back in 1998 when it passed that measure to ensure objective and fair treatment of the American taxpayer. and it is amazing to me that this Congress would try to reverse that policy and turn some private collection agents into vigilantes to go out and try to collect this money. I offered a resolution last year. H. Con. Resolution 213. on exactly this issue. We have many cosponsors on that legislation. I am pleased to hear" today we have additional recruits to that very important cause. We have a system that works now. We need to do better and be more efficient at the collection of taxes and revenues in order to be fair to those people paying their taxes in a regular and fair manner. But it makes no sense to reverse the policy this Congress took in 1998 when it tried- to prevent overlyaggressive and abusive tax collection by the IRS and say we are going to allow these private contractors to do what we will not allow our public servants to do. We were right then. we should stick to that policy. I commend my colleague for offering this very important amendment. and I urge adoption.