It just got tougher for tax delinquents to receive government contracts.

President Obama on Wednesday ordered the IRS to verify whether prospective contractors are up to date in paying their taxes. Companies seeking to do business with the government have long had to certify they are not delinquent in their taxes — now IRS must verify if those certifications are truthful and report its findings in 90 days.

Obama said he plans to ask Congress for authority to collect delinquent taxes from companies that already have federal contracts. Agencies would divert contractors' payments to the IRS until debts are repaid and only then would contractors receive full payments. The proposal was part of the 2010 budget, but was not adopted. The 2011 budget goes to Congress on Feb. 1.

Tens of thousands of deadbeat contractors owe the government more than $5 billion, Obama said before signing the memo. The government should not pay these companies any money until their taxes are paid because unpaid taxes cheat citizens out of improvements to education, health care and energy, he said.

The $5 billion "would be enough to cover the cost of annual college tuition for more than half a million students," Obama said. "If we were to invest in health care, it would be enough to cover 2.5 million children."

Obama ordered the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget to work with other federal agencies to evaluate suspension and debarment policies, and report back in 90 days on ways to improve the process to ensure deadbeat firms aren't given new contracts. The report must include a plan to make company tax certifications available in a governmentwide database.

"Too often, federal contracting officials do not have the most basic information they need to make informed judgments about whether a company trying to win a federal contract is delinquent in paying its taxes," Obama wrote in the memo. "We need to give our contracting officials the tools they need to protect taxpayer dollars."