A quartet of Democratic Senators have submitted a letter to the Federal Trade Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, calling for a review of the scripts being used by the private collection agencies collecting unpaid tax debts on behalf of the IRS.
There have been numerous reports about the scripts being used by one of the agencies, Pioneer Credit.
Taxpayers contacted by IRS contractors are at serious risk of abuse. The Taxpayer Advocate has reported that more than half of the initial accounts referred to these private debt collectors are for taxpayers below 250% ofthe federal poverty level. Private debt collection companies are also consistently the highest category of complaints received by the CFPB. Given the FTC’s responsibility for enforcing the FDCPA, I ask that you conduct a thorough review of these scripts and provide a briefing to my staff on this matter no later than September 1, 2017. I also ask that you provide answers to the following questions:
- To date, has the FTC conducted any reviews ofthese or similar IRS private debt collector call scripts, and if so, what were the results of these reviews?
- Does the FTC actively monitor complaints against the four contractors hired by the IRS to collect tax debts? Has the FTC obtained any such complaints, and if so, how many, and what was the nature of these complaints? Did the FTC take any action based on these complaints? Were these complaints forwarded to the IRS?
- Does the FTC work with the IRS or TIGTA to ensure contractor compliance with the FDCPA? If so, in what ways?
Yesterday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center released a number of documents it obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, including the policies and procedures manual that the private collection agencies must follow, the data and privacy standards, and copies of the contracts between the IRS and the agencies. The policies and procedures manual included information that must be disclosed during telephone calls, but did not include any specific scripts that should be used. The scripts were to be created by the collection agencies and then submitted to the IRS for approval.
