U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) on Aug. 15 urged the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to update its information technology systems.
“Modernization of antiquated IRS systems is badly needed to improve taxpayer service and better protect Americans’ personal data,” said the congressman, whose comments followed the release of an Aug. 7 report from the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) that found the IRS does not plan to decommission and replace the vast majority of the agency’s outdated information systems.
The IRS confirmed the findings of the TIGTA audit, which was initiated to assess the efforts to identify, replace, and decommission legacy systems and follow up on prior audit recommendations. Without an accurate and complete inventory, the IRS will be unable to effectively manage its legacy systems, the report says.
“The latest TIGTA report and subsequent IRS response once again reveal the misaligned priorities of the Biden-Harris IRS and their failure to serve American taxpayers,” Rep. Smith said.
“The administration’s continued pursuit of unauthorized tax prep services and schemes to audit more Americans across the income spectrum, including new ways to audit the tips received by service workers above basic needs like IT and customer service improvements,” he added, “is another reminder of how little respect they have for hardworking families across the country.”
The TIGTA report also found that without an enterprise-wide program, there is risk of an increasing use of resources to operate and maintain aged systems. The IRS’s spending on operations and maintenance for its information technology infrastructure increased 35 percent from $2 billion in fiscal year 2019 to $2.7 billion in FY 2023 and will likely continue to increase until a majority of legacy systems are decommissioned, according to the report.