"Collectors Cost IRS More Than They Raise"

Well, duh.

I'm shocked, really I am.

One more reason to go with a consumption tax and disband the IRS. This cost disappears and nobody gets away without paying taxes, not even illegal immigrants.

I bet this contractor cost is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of running the IRS.

It all needs to go.

-Viz

More proof that the Republican's favorite word; PRIVATIZATION, is really code for cronyism.

This from a country that is $9.2 trillion in debt? Shocking...

Can you say, FairTax?

WOW, I actually agree with danni in that privatization does not work.

For those Fair Tax enthusiasts, how hard do you think it would be to scam? Cash purchases only, off sheet or under-valued sales, etc. are common everywhere there is a sales tax.
And then there are leases, off-shore purchases,etc..

privatization does not work.
POSTED BY 08R4EVER


You guys actually think government works better than the private sector? These are private organizations that are essentially subsidized by the government. In a true free market they wouldn't exist because someone would come along and do a more efficient job. This is a corrupt bureaucracy stifling competition on its government contracts. If they actually cared about efficiency, they'd shop around for a more competent private company to issue the contract to. The government isn't holding it's contractors accountable for their horrible performance and you guys want to blame the contractor? What about the government that allows this kind of inefficiency in the first place? If you were invested in a company and the company's collection agency was losing money, would you blame collections, or the people that refused to fire them?

I blame both the contractor and the government for this.

NETHER the problem is though that whichever party rules will reward their own campaign contributors with contracts. Privatization just provides the party of the President opportunities to steal.

You mean free markets like the energy market in California? Or the oil futures market? Those seem to be going so well.

I'm sure that when the IRS did it under clinton they collected a lot more than it cost. The whole government has suddenly become corrupt in the last 8 years. They were all lilly white prior to 2000. That damn Bush. I'll bet he is getting filthy rich from it. I'll even bet he makes at least $100 million in the next 7 years.

The Internal Revenue Service expects to lose more than $37 million by using private debt collectors

Another Bushco privatization success story!

Right up there with Walter Reed and fecal contaminated drinking water for the troops in Iraq!

I'll even bet he makes at least $100 million in the next 7 years.

Sniper, if Bush hasn`t taken at least a billion out of the saudi royals for covering their asses for bankrolling 9-11, he`s even stupider than he appears.

"I'm sure that when the IRS did it under clinton they collected a lot more than it cost...

Posted by Sniper"

Wasn't it during Clinton's years that they had hearings about the IRS heavyhanded collecting?

NETHER the problem is though that whichever party rules will reward their own campaign contributors with contracts. Privatization just provides the party of the President opportunities to steal.

POSTED BY DANNI
------

Right, but it's because both parties are corrupt! Let's not blame privatization for the faults of corrupt government. If the government wasn't corrupt, these contracts would be handled properly and issued to efficient and accountable companies. Since we are stuck with only two options and both are bought and paid for by their respective owners, we're SOL. The fish is rotting from the head down.

Sniper, if Bush hasn`t taken at least a billion out of the saudi royals for covering their asses for bankrolling 9-11, he`s even stupider than he appears.

Posted by northguy3

Don't ever let any facts get in the way of your opinions. Your feelings are the only thing that matter to me.

C'mon kids! Lets all pitch in, we gotta war to pay for :)

Lets put on a show!

Privatization works, if you privatize in a sensible manner. Banks don't hire debt collectors, they sell the debt to debt collectors. So the bank makes some of the cash and the debt collector takes on all the risk. The IRS was too dumb to do this. Idiots.

Imagine such a thing. A government employee not worth his salt.

"Right, but it's because both parties are corrupt!"

Well, you could put it that way but really it is because of the huge cost of running for elected office. Of course big contributors will be rewarded, why does anyone think they contribute.
Privatization should be renamed Profitization.
Government agencies like the IRS should be run by civil service employees of the Federal Government.

Liberals are always complaining that we don't pay enough in taxes. Well, one congressman has proposed that a line be added to the tax return so that people can enter an amount to be voluntarily taxed. I wonder how many liberals will put their money where their mouth is and voluntarily donate their hard-earned income to the government. If this becomes part of the return, I would just love to see how many liberals actually leave this line blank.

Government agencies like the IRS should be run by civil service employees of the Federal Government.

Posted by danni

Damn, I thought it was.

Them civil service employees are a bunch of good, hard workers. No waste or fraud in our government.

Government agencies like the IRS should be run by civil service employees of the Federal Government.

Posted by danni at 2008-04-15 01:15 PM


And always with 5 times more manpower than required.

ooops, person power

"Privatization works, if you privatize in a sensible manner. Banks don't hire debt collectors, they sell the debt to debt collectors. So the bank makes some of the cash and the debt collector takes on all the risk. The IRS was too dumb to do this. Idiots."
Posted by dumbwhore

They do that and nobody would pay their taxes. A private company couldn't raid your home at gunpoint and confiscate your property.

They are willing to spend more on collections than they bring in because its value in fear is far more than the amount returned. keeps the masses paying taxes.

"Well, you could put it that way but really it is because of the huge cost of running for elected office."

Right, politics was a clean game until the concept of TV airtime rolled around. The government is corrupt because we allow it to be corrupt. Both parties point fingers at each other so the rubes will spend their time, money, and energy propping up their own side. Meanwhile, we're all promoting the same dirty entity, it's just two sides of the same coin and the partisan fools are completely ignorant to the fact that they've been duped. By the way, this is not the private sectors fault either. They're just playing by the rules the people have given them.


"Privatization should be renamed Profitization"

What's wrong with profits? If a company can do a more efficient job than the government bureaucracy can (and that shouldn't be hard) then they should be able to keep a little for themselves. Profits are motivation. What is the motivation for a government employee to do an efficient job?

Government can do a job better ? If Exon ran like this we would be bailing them out.


Census to scrap handheld computers for 2010 count
By Gautham Nagesh 04/03/08

"What's wrong with profits? If a company can do a more efficient job than the government bureaucracy can (and that shouldn't be hard) then they should be able to keep a little for themselves. Profits are motivation. What is the motivation for a government employee to do an efficient job?"

That is the right wing theory, too bad it never works out that way as the IRS, this time, demonstrates.
Privatization encourages the private company to:
Pay the lowest wages possible, thereby ensuring they get the least qualified employee
Hire the least number of employees possible thereby ensuring the worst possible service
But they sure do make sure they keep their profit which would be better spent on better and more employees.

I have a daughter who runs group homes here in Florida, good old (POS) Jeb privatized the whole department as much as he could. It is now a complete disaster, payment to the individual group homes never paid on time, services for clients that are in great need not provided though they are supposed to be according to the law, medicines needed by mentally handicapped clients not provided, and indifferent employees of the PRIVATIZED agencies responsible for payment, for client coordination, etc. don't give a crap. But....the owners of those privatized agencies, who are good buddies with the Republicans running the state sure do get their profits. Meanwhile there are extremely handicapped people who can;t get their meds, their wheel chairs, etc.

Privatization is a morally bankrupt program which harms thousands of handicapped individuals in Florida every single day. the greed fuckers who own the privatized agencies ought to be thrown in jail.

The more you know about The Dept. of Children and FAmilies in Florida...the more you hate the Republicans running this state.

Jeb Bush is a disgusting piece of crap and I don't mind saying, it would be ok with me if he just ascended into heaven sooner rather than later.

That is a fact!

JAKEB that example you give is really not an argument against privatization is it???
Seems to me that it is an example of the poor management that the Bush appointees have brought to many federal agencies.

Samole samole. Privatization fails again, but the faithful want to blame the IRS. Always point the accusatory finger away from the problem.

Then fire the sleazy bastards!

Yes it is Danni . When I have to contract work out , I make sure to cross all the T's . The government clowns couldn't even handle that .

"Yes it is Danni . When I have to contract work out , I make sure to cross all the T's . The government clowns couldn't even handle that ."

When a business is mismanaged we look at the people managing it. When government is mismanaged then it is those who are managing it who are at fault, that would be Republican political appointees.
All appointees are not the same and the Bush administration is famous for appointing incompetent cronies.

You automatically want to blame the government employees. From what I have seen personally, the privatized agencies do not work anywhere nearly as well as the government agencies which previously did the same jobs.

When I was just starting out as an estimator we bid a job for the Army. We were up against 5 other bidders.

The bid documents were crap and I left out about 18K worth of lighting. The initial bid was about 17K.

We got the job (even though we were WAY low and it was obvioulsy not a responsible bid)

About 3/4 of the way through the project they asked for a change order proposal to add about double the existing contract, just the break we needed.

Our cost amazingly strated out with our inital loss and then grew from there.

It was accepted no questions asked and turned into one of my most profitable jobs.

Government.......

Uh huh. It might be true that under Republican administrations, two or three of the top people in each department might be Republican, but the vast majority of the rank-and-file government bureaucracy are Democrats; i.e., incompetents for life. Doesn't matter if it's Dems or Repubs at the top of the government, government by nature is unwieldy, incompetent, and moronic. You could put the head of Goldman Sachs or Boeing at the top of your Florida Dept of Children and Families, and it would still be going in a thousand different directions. Ditto for the Post Office, Social Security, DOE--if you're not answerable to people for the money you spend, and not answerable to even the voters, the principle of moral hazard reigns supreme.

2112 and you somehow thing the same thing doesn't happen in the private sector??? You're dreaming.
Any large organization provides opportunities for people to abuse the system. When I had my business we did work for the school board...I underbid a job, a fairly big one for our small company, the Schoolboard said either complete the contract or get sued. We completed the contract, lost money, and never bid another government job. I could more easly negotiate with my private customers.

From what I have seen personally, the privatized agencies do not work anywhere nearly as well as the government agencies which previously did the same jobs.

Posted by danni
* * * *

Is that so. Lemme ask you: if there were a package you had that absolutely--no excuses--had to get to its recipient by Friday morning, would you send it via the Postal Service, or Fedex?

If you had a father who had to have life-or-death surgery, and you could have it done at a VA hospital, or at a private heart specialist, where is daddy going to be having his surgery?

Who is more responsive, if you need to have someone come out to your property? An appraiser, or an inspector from the county office?

And so on. Privatize it all.

I underbid a job, a fairly big one for our small company, the Schoolboard said either complete the contract or get sued. We completed the contract, lost money, and never bid another government job. I could more easly negotiate with my private customers.

Posted by danni
* * * *

Most private customers would've said the same thing.

"if you're not answerable to people for the money you spend, and not answerable to even the voters, the principle of moral hazard reigns supreme."

You can pretend that the owners of privatized agencies are answerable but you know as well as I do that most of them view the opportunity as a license to steal...which they do.

You can pretend that the owners of privatized agencies are answerable but you know as well as I do that most of them view the opportunity as a license to steal...which they do.

Posted by danni
* * * *

And if you have evidence of that, you need to report it, and send them to prison.

I live an hour from New Orleans. I don't have to go very far to find examples of an absolutely, irredeemably corrupt and incompetent municipal government. It's simply not possible for any organization--private or "privatized"--could be any worse.

If you work for a private company and fuck up a contract you're fired . If you work for yourself you eat the loss . Not so with civil servants .

"And so on. Privatize it all.

Posted by rightisright "


Been there. Done that. Maybe you want to turn back the clock to the "good old days" of the 1920's, but people don't buy that laissez-fantasyland ideological bullshit. They see the results. They prove it with their votes. Sorry.

That's true enough. We get the government we deserve.

Ah well. Now that Social Security and Medicare are broke, and they're coming to us with a cup in their hand, maybe enough of us will say, not this time. We already gave at the office, again and again and again.

I doubt it, though.

Collectors Cost IRS More Than They Raise

So fire them. What's the problem? I don't see the problem...

"If you work for a private company and fuck up a contract you're fired ."

Riight. We read about CEOs even bankrupting companies and still leaving with golden parachutes.

"And if you have evidence of that, you need to report it, and send them to prison."

Report it to who??? Republican owned privatized businesses, Republican leadership in Tallahassee, yeah....they'll do something about their cronies'curruption.
Uh huh sure.

I know its true because I've seen how aggressively the Bush adminstration has been on corruption in Iraq.

When a business is mismanaged we look at the people managing it. When government is mismanaged then it is those who are managing it who are at fault, that would be Republican political appointees.
All appointees are not the same and the Bush administration is famous for appointing incompetent cronies.

Posted by danni

How far down the food chain do you think thoes political appointies go?

Not near as far as you think. The vast amount of burcrats are their for life and not appointed.

Government mismanagement realy isn't that. There is no management at all. All they do is try to increase the size of their department so they can get paid more for having a bunch of employees.

"How far down the food chain do you think thoes political appointies go?"

Well gee whiz....if it was a corporation the person in charge would be expected to follow that chain of command right down to where the problems are but the same person, after being appointed head of a federal agency by Bush, is now not expected to "manage". All you have is excuses for bad management. Bush and your team had all the power, all the tools to make the system work. Could the incompetent people appointed bare some of the blame???? Not by righties. For them it is just those "lazy", "dumb", "incompetent" federal employees.....funny thing though, I've known a few over the years....worked just as hard as anyone I knew in the private sector.
No, when an organization is poorly run the person in charge deserves the blame.

Then fire the sleazy bastards!

"After years of lobbying by the private collection industry, the Republican-controlled Congress created the program in 2004."

"Three firms were awarded contracts: Pioneer Credit Recovery, based in the western New York district represented by Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R), who supported the program and recently announced his retirement; the CBE Group of Waterloo, Iowa, the home state of Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R), who helped create the program; and Linebarger Goggan Blair and Sampson, a law firm based in Texas, home to President Bush."

Republican, through and through. Lobbied for, created, and awarded to companies in Republican districts.

1 billion in uncollected taxes, and these bozos at 24% of the take, can only come up with what, 49 million.