Treasury Department Releases Audit Report on IRS Private Debt Collection

The Treasury Department had some nice things to say about the way the IRS developed and implemented its private debt collection program, but cautioned that there are a few aspects that still need to be closely monitored.

The office of the Treasury inspector general for tax administration today released the results of an audit it performed on the program giving the IRS a passing grade on nearly every measurable.  The report said that the IRS did a good job of planning and rolling out the program, specifically singling-out the training and screening of contractor collectors, implementation of monitoring and oversight, and the development of physical and data security plans.

But the report also recommended that the IRS needed to address a few issues primarily dealing with taxpayer data security.  For example, one of the three collection agencies that initially won the contract had been storing federal tax information on a server shared with private-sector clients.  The Treasury inspector recommended that all federal tax data be stored on separate servers.

The report also suggested that the required use of scripts for collection calls stating, “taxpayer rights would be better protected if contractors were required to use scripts for all types of telephone contacts with taxpayers.”  The scripts would be developed by the private contractors and approved by the IRS.

A complete copy of the report can be found at http://www.treas.gov/tigta/auditreports/2007reports/200730066fr.html.