The IRS should use federal employees, not private debt collectors, to go after inactive outstanding tax liabilities, according to the head of the National Treasury Employees Union.

"Outsourcing the tax collection work of the IRS is a waste of taxpayer dollars," said NTEU president Tony Reardon during a conference call with reporters.."That's why the experiment was tried and rejected twice in the past 20 years."

The provision is buried within tax offsets of the highway bill, which will currently fund transportation projects for the next three years.

The section would require the Treasury Department to contract out collections for tax liabilities where the IRS hasn't been able to locate the taxpayer, whether a third of the statute of limitations has passed or whether attempts to collect the revenue have been inactive for more than a year.

The proposed rules were added as part of Senate amendments of The DRIVE Act to help provide transportation funding.

But such a move would take work away from the professionals already within the IRS, Reardon argued. "IRS employees have, at their disposal a variety of tools to help delinquent taxpayers meet their obligations, especially those who have financial problems," he said. "And the fact is this, [private collection agencies], they can't do that."

But while tools may be available, the IRS is currently battling to show they will be able to use them. The agency is coming off of a dismal report from the National Taxpayer Advocate that showed budget cutbacks have hampered customer service, projecting that only 50 percent of calls from taxpayers will be answered in 2015, and those callers face a 30-minute or more wait.

The wait times could be trimmed with better funding for the IRS, the National Taxpayer Advocate said in the report, and Reardon agreed.

"What Congress, in our estimation, should do is increase funding for the IRS so the agency can strengthen its debt collection activities," he said. "Given the current economic climate, it is more important than ever for taxpayers to work through any financial difficulties they may face."

But when pressed by reporters for what the impact of using private debt collectors would be on the IRS workforce, Reardon said that it would take away resources and funding from an already thin staff.

"In our views, it would basically move the work away from them," he said. "It undoubtedly would take money to set up and that would take money away that could otherwise be used to bring in more frontline employees."

NTEU is supporting an amendment by Rep. John Lewis, D.-Ga., to strip the Senate amendment from the bill.

The union is also protesting a separate amendment that seeks to divert customs user fees collected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to transportation funding. Reardon said it also supports a House Democrat measure to strip the Senate amendment from the highway bill.

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