Sherrod Proposes IRS Changes

Senators including Ohio’s Sherrod Brown say the IRS has spent three times as much money collecting debt as it earned doing so, leading them to introduce new legislation. The proposal introduced by Brown and Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), would block the IRS from using private firms. Since 2015, the Secretary of Treasury has been required to contract with private firms for debt collection. The Democratic senators also cited concerns with more aggressive practices that private firms undertake to collect, believing them to minimize due process and occasionally violate the rights of those being solicited.