three recommendations for overhauling irs tech.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
the internal revenue service runs a pretty good business. for every dollar invested in its budget, it rakes in $300 in federal revenue, an annual total of $3.5 trillion on a budget of $11.43 billion.
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how odd, then, to find that the brains of the operation is a computer system that dates back to about 1960.
yes, 1960. back when data was recorded on magnetic tape. back when bill gates was five years old. back when you could still buy a desoto, new.
a former irs chief technology officer said, “the situation is analogous to operating a 1960s automobile with the original chassis, suspension and drive train, but with a more modern engine, satellite radio and a gps navigation system. it runs better than the original model but not nearly as efficiently as a system bought today.”
and that’s putting it nicely. the tax advocacy service had a scarier metaphor in its 2019 annual report to congress.
partly because of historic poor planning and execution and partly because of lack of funding, the irs has been unable to replace its antiquated systems. every year, instead, it layers more and more smaller systems and applications onto its core systems. by analogy, the irs has erected a 50-story office building on top of a creaky, 60-year-old foundation, and it is adding a few more floors every year. there are inherent limitations on the functionality of a 60-year-old infrastructure, and at some point, the entire edifice is likely to collapse.
according to the government accountability office, the irs’s individual master file (imf) and business master file (bmf) systems are the two oldest it systems in the federal government. each is a distinct line item in the irs budget. both were installed during the eisenhower administration, and they’re still at work.
the imf still uses an outdated assembly language code, but it’s running on a 2010 ibm mainframe. the antiquity of the system makes it hard for the irs to address such modern-day problems as identity theft, refund fraud and the shenanigans of proactive financial institutions. inaccuracies happen. the complexity of managing dozens of systems synchronizing individual taxpayer data across multiple data files and databases inevitably leads to system failures.
one such crash, you may recall, happened just last year on the deadline for filing 2017 returns. the crash was attributed to the malfunction of an 18-month-old hunk of hardware that was supporting the imf system.
it was no surprise. shortly beforehand, the gao director of it warned in congressional testimony that “relying on these antiquated systems for our nation’s primary source of revenue is highly risky, meaning the chance of having a failure during the filing season is continually increasing.”
quick to react, congress voted to reduce the irs’s business systems modernization (bsm) account by 62 percent, from $290 million to $110 million.
but that was then. this is now.
now a house bill wants to increase bsm funding to $200 million, almost halfway back to where it was when it wasn’t enough.
that amount would constitute 1.7 percent of the irs budget. a concurrent senate bill would leave it at $110 million, about 1 percent.
in either case, it’s funding for the electronic equivalent of duct tape, patches to slap over old patches rather than replacement of the core system. but patching up patches is not sustainable for several reasons.
- there are inherent limitations on 60-year-old technology. whatever new systems and apps the irs comes up with, the static data structures and programming language will impede their effectiveness.
- an older system is more difficult to maintain. programmers conversant with assembly language are dying off.
the older a system gets, the more expensive to maintain. if you don’t believe it, buy yourself a 1960 desoto fireflite and make it roadworthy.- systems upgrades become more challenging when implemented over extended periods. if you think changing a horse in midstream is hard, trying changing half a horse.
aside from the catastrophic effects of a total system breakdown, an antiquated system chugging along at its maximum capacity hampers the irs mission to provide taxpayers with top-quality service. among the services hobbled by the current technology are:
- customer callbacks, a computerized system that could avoid the need for taxpayers to wait on hold. such a jury-rigged retrofit would cost $45 million – more than congress is willing to part with.
- case management systems. the irs works with a tangled web of 60 major case management systems, most of them distinct and unconnected. often a given irs representative can’t necessarily access the system needed to help a taxpayer.
- online taxpayer accounts. the irs’s future state plan is supposed to allow taxpayers to access personal accounts, much as customers do with their bank accounts. but it is proving impossible to integrate all the systems necessary to feed data to a given account.
- online practitioner accounts. same problem as above, aggravated by a practitioner’s need to call the irs many times for many clients, generally billing those clients for the hours spent on hold.
- provision of information about tas to taxpayers. by law, when the irs sends a statutory notice of deficiency, it must inform the taxpayer of the nearest tas office. unfortunately, this seemingly simple task is beyond the capability of the irs information technology.
the tas is reluctant to prescribe how much has to be spent on bringing irs technology into the 21st century. but it has this to say:
“given the central role technology and automation play in virtually every aspect of irs operations, the irs budget should reflect their importance. it is hard to imagine a large corporation as dependent on technology as the irs would spend only 1 percent or 2 percent of its budget on it systems upgrades.”
that said, the tas emphasizes that does not advocate congress giving the irs a blank check. it warns that “… historically, the irs has often failed to produce projected results timely and at budgeted levels.” with that in mind, the tas makes three recommendations:
- the irs should present a comprehensive it modernization plan with time frames and cost projections.
- there should be an independent assessment of the plan’s effectiveness and feasibility from a qualified third-party entity.
- a third-party entity should provide annual reports on irs progress in meeting its targets.
only trouble is, the proposed bsm budget is barely enough for patches, let alone plans. until congress agrees to invest millions in technology, the nation will be foregoing billions in revenue.