On June 28, the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) private tax debt collection program survived an effort by the House to bring it to a halt. House legislators struck language in the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act (H.R. 2829) that would have put a tight cap on how much funding could have been used to administer the program. The private tax collection program lets private companies track down taxpayers who have not paid a small amount of outstanding taxes (see a summary of the program here). If IRS did the same work in-house, it could bring in nearly three times as much money as the private debt collectors. Additionally, letting profit-motivated companies handle sensitive tax matters has raised concerns regarding privacy and taxpayer rights. The House passed the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill by a vote of 240 to 179 (roll call). It would appropriate over $21 billion for an assortment of programs, including the Treasury Department, General Services Administration and the federal courts system. Before coming to the House floor, the bill included language that would have curtailed the debt collection program by limiting the amount of money IRS could spend administering it to less than $1 million in FY 2008. Such a low figure could have effectively killed the program. The IRS spent over $70 million administering it as of May 23, the last time IRS gave a public accounting of program's finances. At the time, private debt collectors had only raised $19 million — a net loss. The language to limit funding was taken out of the bill on procedural grounds. By a House rule, tax or tariff measures have to be reported by the House Ways and Means Committee, the tax writing committee. The debt collection language could have violated the rule, because it would have, in effect, prevented the IRS from executing a tax measure, and it was reported by the House Appropriations Committee, not the tax writing committee. Rep. Jim McCrery (R-LA) challenged the provision, and Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) assented, striking the language. The House Rules committee could have made a special rule to protect the language from procedural challenges, but no rule was issued. The fight over the program's funding, however, is not over. The Senate's equivalent of the Financial Services and General Government bill has not been approved by its subcommittee or the full Appropriations Committee. A similar provision could be included in this version and ultimately in the bill that becomes law. Furthermore, the White House has only said that it opposes the appropriations-limiting language; it has not indicated that it intends to veto the bill if it includes the language. Congress may take action on other bills, as well. Two popular bills in Congress — H.R. 695 (Taxpayer Abuse and Harassment Prevention Act of 2007) and S. 335 (A bill to prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from using private debt collection companies, and for other purposes) — would also end the private debt collection program. S. 335, introduced by Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND), currently has 21 cosponsors, and H.R. 695, introduced by Reps. Steve Rothman (D-NJ) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), has 140 cosponsors, including 16 Republicans.