The IRS will be hiring private collection companies to collect taxes in difficult cases.

The BBB is alerting consumers that the IRS is now required to use private debt collection companies to collect «inactive tax receivables.»

These include cases where the IRS can’t locate the taxpayer and more than a year has passed without interaction with the taxpayer for purposes of furthering the collection.

The law requires that IRS begin entering into agreements within three months. This provision was in the recent highway funding bill that Congress passed and the President signed into law.

The new law imposes specific reporting requirements on the IRS including an annual report of the number and amount of tax receivables provided to collection contractors, total amounts collected, and collection costs incurred by the IRS.

Also required is a report every two years of an independent evaluation of each private debt collection performance and a measurement plan that compares the best practices used by private debt collectors with those used by the IRS.

The timing of this new law follows a recent Federal Trade Commission crackdown on collections agencies related to questionable tactics used by some collectors.