With a self reported estimate of $19.2 billion worth of tax return fraud each year, the IRS is working to improve its detection efforts. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (“TIGTA”) issued a July report highlighting weaknesses in the IRS’ Return Review Program (“RRP”). The TIGTA recommended that the IRS Chief Technology Officer implement the following:
“1) establish appropriate program-level governance with enterprisewide authority for the RRP;
2) clearly document the RRP systems integrator roles and responsibilities;
3) complete the RRP Prototype Management Plans, clarify how to measure prototype success, map prototype activities to requirements, incorporate lessons learned, and obtain approval from governance bodies;
4) document, for approval by RRP governance bodies, the decided systems development path;
5) establish sufficient Enterprise Life Cycle guidance for prototypes; and
6) take appropriate steps to ensure that change requests include alternative analyses and impact assessments and also establish and implement Enterprise Architecture guidelines for evaluating later versions of tested commercial products.”
The IRS has agreed with these ITGTA recommendations and has begun implementing them.
