How Congress is pulling the IRS off the rich — and siccing it on the poor

What happens when the IRS privatizes tax collection? Nothing good.

Take from the poor.
(Image credit: iStock)

Congress ran an experiment last year with the Internal Revenue Service. It had the tax collection agency enlist private debt collectors to help bring in hundreds of millions in unpaid taxes. But a new report by an independent office within the IRS suggests the experiment was a bust: The IRS paid the collectors $20 million in fees but only got $6.7 million in revenue back — less than 1 percent of the $920 million the collectors were assigned.

But this wasn't just an embarrassment for the lawmakers who usually cheer when government agency functions are contracted out to private companies. Something much uglier is going on.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.