- "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised
for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better
to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The
robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point
be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us
without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-- C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963)
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- The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will see its
largest expansion since withholding taxes were first enacted during
WWII to enforce the glut of new tax mandates and penalties included in
the Democrats' latest health care plan, according to Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX).
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- A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the
House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500
new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax
information mandated on families and small businesses in the 'reconciliation'
bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend,
according to Brady.
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- "When most people think of health care reform they
think of more doctors exams, not more IRS exams," says U.S. Congressman
Kevin Brady, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee.
"Isn't the federal government already intruding enough into our lives?
We need thousands of new doctors and nurses in America, not thousands more
IRS agents."
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- Scores of new federal mandates and fifteen different
tax increases totaling $400 billion are imposed under the Democratic House
bill. In addition to more complicated tax returns, families and small businesses
will be forced to reveal further tax information to the IRS, provide proof
of 'government approved' health care and submit detailed sales information
to comply with new excise taxes.
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- Scores of new federal mandates and fifteen different
tax increases totaling $400 billion are imposed under the Democratic House
bill. In addition to more complicated tax returns, families and small businesses
will be forced to reveal further tax information to the IRS, provide proof
of 'government approved' health care and submit detailed sales information
to comply with new excise taxes.
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- Unfortunately, according to the Center for American Progress,
the structure of the IRS' use of private agencies to collect "debts" encourages
abuse. Under the current program, collectors are awarded as much as
25 cents of every dollar they collect, in addition to a $100 bonus for
every account they close.
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- The Internal Revenue Service strategy of paying
private debt collectors a 25 percent commission to collect unpaid tax debt
originally met with bipartisan resistance from Congress. They
claimed that the proposal jeopardized the rights and privacy of American
taxpayers. Several organizations voiced their objections to the IRS proposal
and have expressed their strong support for the consumer protection
legislation Rep. Chris Van Hollen introduced: Citizens for Tax Justice,
Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, National Consumer Law
Center, National Consumers League.
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- The very nature of the program provides incentives for
collectors to push the limits of legality to extract a little more revenue
from their targets. As part of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of
1998, Congress, fearing overly aggressive collection practices, explicitly
prohibited the IRS from compensating its own collectors based on the amount
of money they collect. If Congress believes that incentive-based pay will
cause official IRS collectors to cross the line, why would they think private
collectors would behave any differently?
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- Although IRS officials indicated that the purpose of
the limited implementation phase was to assure readiness for full
implementation using up to 12 private collection agencies, the IRS has
not documented how it will identify and use the lessons learned to ensure
that each critical success factor is addressed before expanding the program
even further during the current atmosphere of extraordinary government
spending.
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- Because program's success will be affected by how well
IRS makes adjustments, assessing the lessons learned in limited implementation
is critical. Also, IRS has not documented criteria that it will use to
determine whether the limited implementation performance warrants program
expansion.
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- IRS officials indicated that they are considering criteria
that could trigger a go/no go decision, such as the amount of penalties
collected from Americans unwilling or unable to purchase health care
insurance and there are some indications of PCAs abusing taxpayers
or misusing taxpayer data.
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- Paying private debt collectors on a commission basis is
costly and threatens the rights and privacy of the American taxpayers. Congress
must ensure, as this resolution seeks to do, that federal tax collection
functions will not be handed over to private sector bounty hunters.
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- Critics of the private collection agency program say
that, compared with private debt collectors, whose bad apples star in countless
horror stories of debtor abuse and intimidation, the IRS's customer-service-based
approach may start looking pretty good to taxpayers.
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- A recent Center for American Progress report noted that
"19% of all complaints received by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
in 2005 were related to debt collectors, up from 10.5% in 1999. The FTC
received more complaints about debt collection in 2005 than about any other
industry -- 66,627, a 560% increase over the last six years." The
report's writers claim this will likely occur with private agencies working
on behalf of the IRS.
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- IRS officials say they will have a little more than a
half year to identify the lessons learned before incorporating them into
the next contract solicitation, which IRS intends to release in March 2007.
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- Related to such decisions on expansion is IRS's planned
comparative study of using PCAs. That study is to compare using PCAs to
investing IRS's operating costs into having IRS staff work IRS's "next
best" collection cases. Under the documented study design, IRS would
exclude the fees paid to PCAs from the costs and subtract those fees from
the tax debts and health care penalties collected by PCAs.
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- While such a study might produce useful information,
it will not compare the results of using PCAs with the results IRS could
get if given the same amount of resources, including the fees to be paid
to PCAs, to use in what IRS officials would judge to be the best way to
meet tax collection goals.
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- Adequately designing and implementing the study is important
to ensure policymakers are aware of the true costs of contracting with
PCAs and know whether PCAs offer the best use of federal funds, while using
the least abusive and intrusive tactics to collect tax money owed.
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- But taxpayer advocate Nina Olsen says that collecting
tax revenue is the core job of the IRS, and it should continue to bear
that responsibility while protecting taxpayer rights. IRS employees cost
only 3 cents for every dollar they collect, making them many times more
cost-effective than private collectors.
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- Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the
National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a staff writer for the
New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he's the new editor for the
House Conservatives Fund's weblog. Kouri also serves as political advisor
for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.
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- He's former chief at a New York City housing project
in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering
the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public
safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several
major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and
trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes
for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police
Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com
and PHXnews.com. He's also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com,
MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He's appeared as on-air
commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah,
McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc.
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- Comment
- Mary Sparrowdancer
3-22-10
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- This has NOTHING to do with "health care" -
it has everything to do with establishing a further hold in the US of Communism.
Let there be no doubt, this is not "socialism" - it has gone
way beyond that and it is now fully-blown Communism. Karl Marx said that
Communism could be summed up in a simple sentence: "Abolition of
private property." When our wages no longer belong to us, that means
that Communism has taken over and in this case, the Communists are going
to take our money/wages/income away from us and award them to insurance
companies. This has nothing at all to do with helping us to have better
health care. It is simply Communism.
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