New York SBDC Research Network

From the IRS : The IRS will begin contacting some taxpayers whose overdue federal tax accounts are being transferred to private collection agencies. But watch out for scammers who might claim to be associated with the program to try to steal your money. Keep in mind, the IRS will always send you a letter first before assigning your account to a private collection agency (PCA). Learn more about this new private debt collection program, including how to avoid tax scams and protect your taxpayer rights. Starting this month, the Internal Revenue Service will begin sending letters to a relatively small group of taxpayers whose overdue federal tax accounts are being assigned to one of four private-sector collection agencies. The new program, authorized under a federal law enacted by Congress in December 2015, enables these designated contractors to collect, on the government’s behalf, unpaid tax debts. Usually, these are unpaid individual tax obligations that are not currently being wor

Over the last year, the Federal Trade Commission has continued aggressive enforcement of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by bringing or resolving nine debt collection cases, according to the agency’s annual summary of debt collection activities. “When it comes to debt collection, the FTC has many tools in its arsenal, including research, enforcement, and consumer education,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “But in the years since the financial crisis hit, we have increased our emphasis on law enforcement.” In 2013, the FTC obtained court orders stopping illegal debt collection activities in seven cases, and referred two other debt collection cases to the Department of Justice for civil penalties. In several of the cases, the FTC obtained temporary restraining orders halting the unlawful conduct, freezing the defendants’ assets, and appointing receivers to take over operations while court proceedings progressed. More from the FT

From CBS News MoneyWatch : In its 13 years, my company has been unusually fortunate in that we have had -- as hard as it may be to believe -- only two or three bad debt write-offs (for very small amounts) and perhaps four or five credit card chargebacks (money taken back by card issuers, typically due to customer disputes or fraud). Other than that, our receivables have always been current. I attribute this partially to good luck, but mostly to careful, disciplined processes and practices, from making open-account decisions, to manually reviewing any suspicious credit card charges before shipping (obviously not possible for all businesses), to being willing to pass up any order if we are concerned about getting paid. Unfortunately, it happens that right now we are dealing with our first-ever serious collection challenge, for a relatively large amount of money, from an otherwise great and longtime customer.