Washington ? Make no mistake about it: The Internal Revenue Service wants Americans to pay their delinquent tax bills. The trouble is, it doesn’t seem to have the staff to collect from those taxpayers who have been remiss.

So the agency no one likes to hear from is turning to the industry no one likes to hear from: private debt-collection firms. The government this month began accepting bids from debt-collection agencies that it hopes to begin using as early as next summer to go after billions of dollars in unpaid taxes.

According to a 2004 Government Accountability Office report, Americans owed $120 billion in collectible taxes, including interest and penalties, in 2003.

That was up from $112 billion the year before.