How the IRS loses track but seeks equity

GAO-24-106140, Private Debt Collection Program: IRS Could Improve Results and Better Promote Equitable Outcomes for Taxpayers

Apparently, during the Obama administration a Private Debt Collection Program was set up to collect taxes from dead beats. Then during the Trump years, certain taxpayers were excused from the program because they couldn't pay anyway. I didn't know we had private companies collecting taxes for the government, and their track record in this report is horrible. I wandered into this report from the GAO which was reporting on Covid recommendations that hadn't been followed. This particular report was 43 pages. I didn't find anything about Covid (except "oh look what we did to the poor"), but I suppose people got behind in their taxes. This program had been tried 2 other times in the past but was determined to cost more than it was worth. Duh! There is apparently something called "the shelf" where lost causes are pushed to the back burner. But the idiocy to me seems to be the quest for "equity." Since 1% of the taxpayers pay 45.8% of the taxes, I wonder why no one seeks equity at the upper end.

Since the "underserved" and "marginalized" were recovering nicely with Trump's economic growth policies before Spring 2020, more than other groups, and the Covid lockdown killed that, now we'll have one more search for equity. I suppose a higher rate of blacks and Hispanics were not filing and sitting on "the shelf" even if the actual number was higher for whites on the shelf. Now we need a new bevy of IRS outsourced agents to find them.

42,000 federal employees have multiple years of unfiled tax returns and we know they aren't underpaid, marginalized or underserved. Why not collect from them? The Number of Tax Delinquent Feds Is Growing. The IRS Watchdog Wants a Crackdown. - Government Executive (govexec.com)