Download the Department of the Treasury section from the current edition of the U.S. Government Manual at http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/browse-gm-01.html

On pages 345 & 346, you will find interesting information. The first important tidbit comes from the section on the Financial Management Service, pages 345 & 346. On page 345, under Collections, the manual says, "FMS is responsible for administering the world's largest collection system. ... The Service is working with all Federal agencies to improve the availability of collected funds and the reporting of collection information to Treasury. FMS also retains the services of private debt collection agencies and utilizes standard private sector techniques to collect delinquent debts on behalf of agencies. The Treasury Offset Program is one of the methods used to collect delinquent debt. FMS uses the program to withhold Federal payments, such as Federal income tax refunds, Federal salary payments, and Social Security benefits, to recipients with delinquent debts, including past-due child support obligations and Federal income tax debt."

If you read about Internal Revenue Service functions on page 346, you won't find anything comparable so far as authority to collect delinquent debts to the United States, including delinquent tax debts.

We've long been aware that the Internal Revenue Service, which isn't technically an agency of Government of the United States, has no standing to initiate litigation for collection and/or enforcement of delinquent tax debts and enforcement of internal revenue laws of the United States otherwise.

For the last couple of years, various people have been reviewing portions of the Treasury Financial Manual, located on the Financial Management Services web page at http://www.fms.treas.gov/tfm/index.html

This manual prescribes proper procedure for withholding at the source on wages and salaries paid to government personnel, procedure for garnishment, etc. Along with the Internal Revenue Manual, this resource should increasingly be worked into the mix.

The U.S. Government Manual is among the Office of the Federal Register publications authorized by the Federal Register Act. I believe the specific Code section is 44 U.S.C. § 1510. At any rate, it constitutes "prima facie" evidence under the Federal Register Act, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Federal Rules of Evidence, so it might be introduced into litigation under "offer of proof" provisions found in the Federal Rules of Evidence. There are corresponding state rules.

I more or less started down this line in late 1996 when I stumbled across 5 U.S.C. §§ 5512 through 5520a as the proper procedure for withholding & garnishing wages of government personnel. These sections tie in with Chapter 24 of the Internal Revenue Code, which authorizes withholding income and employment taxes from wages and salaries of government personnel.

Even government personnel may "contest" an alleged debt to government, and in that event, the debt must be certified by the Treasury agent, which in the past was the General Accounting Office, then the Attorney General must authorize a civil action for collection. This information is found at 5 U.S.C. § 5512. In historical and revision notes following the section, I stumbled across mention of GAO as the general agent of the Treasury, then tracked that back to the Independent Treasury Act of 1921.

This is one of the pivotal links in the federalism scheme.

To that point, the Treasury of the United States, not to be confused with the Department of the Treasury, maintained its own operation, and technically, the Treasury was under Congress, as GAO is today. In 1921, most Treasury functions and offices were closed out and the various Federal Reserve Banks tacitly took over many of the functions of the Treasury. Treasury employees were purged, but technically they just moved to the new office created by the 1921 act, the General Accounting Office.

Up through 1996, under Title 31 CFR Department of the Treasury regulations, GAO still had primary fiduciary responsibility as general agent of the Treasury. Based on the regulations, I initiated correspondence with GAO. In a reply, someone at GAO informed me that that responsibility had largely been delegated, but didn't say how it had been delegated or to whom.

At about the same time I initiated FOIA inquiries asking for whatever contract IRS has for collection of delinquent income tax debts to the United States. Those didn't get very far. The request sent to the Department of the Treasury was forwarded to IRS & the IRS response was something to the effect of, "We have no documents responsive to your request." Unfortunately, by then I was enjoying my government-paid vacation in Lexington, Kentucky and was focused on other things so didn't pursue the matter further.

There is an additional clue as to the arrangement IRS has with the Treasury Financial Management Service in the Administrative Procedures Act, specifically 5 U.S.C. § 552. There may be a contract, a memorandum of agreement or some similar device between IRS & FMS. At any rate, that's one of the issues we will pursue. The "delegation" from GAO to FMS also needs to be documented.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not screw this up. We're systematically breaking this down so efforts along this line need to be coordinated.

Dan Meador
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