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Make sure your crimes are committed by unionized Treasury employees.
July 28, 2009
Congress this year ended the pilot program to outsource collection of delinquent taxes to private collections. Opponents of the program insisted that private collectors just couldn't be trusted to deal with taxpayers fairly, honestly and confidentially. Only official government employees, ideally members of the Treasury Employees union, can be trusted with such delicate and important work.
A revenue officer for the Internal Revenue Service has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he urged people who owed taxes to refinance with a mortgage company for which he worked.Mark Claybrooks, 41, of Brentwood worked as an IRS revenue officer in Walnut Creek, contacting people who were delinquent with their taxes. From 2003 to 2005, he also worked for Faith Mortgage Group in Antioch, refinancing personal-residence loans.
From 2002 to 2008, Claybrooks recommended to at least two people that they "pay off delinquent federal income tax obligations by refinancing with Faith Mortgage Group," according to an indictment handed up Wednesday by a grand jury in Oakland.
Good thing the poor taxpayers were protected from the scourge of private collection agencies.
Related Coverage:
Tax Prof
Kay Bell
Tax Rascal
Monica Lawver, with additional examples of the importance of unionized government tax employees.
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Comments
JK-
I opposed the use of outside collection agencies because the sole motivation of such an agency is “collect as much money as possible in whatever way you can so we can get a commission, and the taxpayer be damned” – while, at least in theory, the goal of the IRS is proper tax administration.
An outside collector could care less if you actually owe the money – they want it anyway or else they do not get paid. The IRS has some obligation to investigate and verify the legitimacy of the debt.
TWTP
Posted by: Robert D Flach | July 28, 2009 11:04 AM
TWTP,
Then change the rules for private collectors, rather than increase costs by replacing the system?
Dustin
Posted by: Dustin | July 28, 2009 1:26 PM