FederalDaily - May 25, 2007

IRS Employees Trained to Boost Compliance, Kelley Says

Unlike private debt collectors, IRS employees are specially trained to assist taxpayers in becoming compliant with the nation’s tax laws, National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen Kelley told a House committee May 23. Kelley testified at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the IRS program that uses private debt collectors to chase down tax deadbeats. Kelly said IRS employees have training to generate collections as well as to improve future taxpayer compliance. Private collectors, she said, are focused only on the current amount owed and don’t have any enforcement tools to ensure future compliance. Also, awarding collection bounties up to 24 percent to the debt collectors seems to conflict with the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, “which specifically prevents employees or supervisors at the IRS from being evaluated on the amount of collections they bring in,” Kelley said. Two bills are pending in the Senate (S. 335) and House (H.R. 685) that would effectively end the program. To see more, go to: www.nteu.org.

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Lawmaker Urges Zero TRICARE Mail-Order Co-payments

A bill introduced by Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., would set up demonstration projects to see if free co-payments for the TRICARE mail-order pharmacy program would boost participation in the mail-order option—and thereby increase cost savings for the program. Currently, TRICARE beneficiaries can get prescriptions through a military facility, from a retail pharmacy or through the mail. Bilirakis said on May 22 that his legislation, the TRICARE Mail-Order Pharmacy Pilot Program Act, H.R. 2319, could be a significant step toward increasing participation in the TRICARE mail-order prescription drug benefit. The two-year pilot would include 2,000 eligible beneficiaries in each TRICARE region—1,000 of whom also would be enrolled in Medicare Part B but who have yet to use the TRICARE mail-order benefit. The participants would have their prescription co-payment waived, said Bilirakis, a member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. “My goal is to get more TRICARE beneficiaries to participate in a lower cost pharmacy option for their everyday maintenance prescriptions,” Bilirakis said. To see more, go to: http://bilirakis.house.gov.

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Legislators Call on State Department to Add Staff for Passport Deluge

A trio of lawmakers urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to do something to cut the massive passport application backlog that is overwhelming the government’s ability to process them all. Led by Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla., the lawmakers on May 23 asked Rice to consider adding staff and opening a temporary processing center in Oklahoma City, Okla., or Wichita, Kans., to help reduce the application backlog. They note that although there are more than 8,000 locations nationwide at which to submit a passport application, those applications are all processed at one of 13 regional passport agencies. Houston, for example, has a backlog of 90,000 applications. The paper flood was let loose in January by new regulations that require U.S. citizens who travel by air to a foreign country to have a valid U.S. passport. Previously exempt destinations such as Mexico, Canada and Jamaica are now subject to these rules, Boren said. The rules have sparked an “unprecedented demand” for new passports, the State Department says. “The new rules are necessary to make our country more secure, but they have made it more difficult for Americans to travel abroad,” Boren said. To see more, go to: www.house.gov/list/press/ok02_boren/20070523passports.html.

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