The Internal Revenue Service spends too much on problem-plagued IT systems, according to a new report that claims the waste is equal to the total average tax bill of 281,000 Americans.
The report, expected to be cited at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today on the 2017 IRS tax season, said shifting IT purchases to a corporate model would save $31,000 for each of the 80,000 IRS employees.
“At the root of much of what ails the federal government bloat in IT spending and related woes is a lack of meaningful IT Asset Management,” said the report from the International Association of IT Asset Managers.
At issue, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, is an expensive but somewhat ineffective high-tech system the IRS uses to detect fraudulent tax returns.
The IRS’s own Taxpayer Advocate said in a recent report that one of those programs was wrong 91 percent of the time, meaning properly filed returns are flagged and payments to citizens are delayed.
In 2016, said the Taxpayer Advocate, “These improper selections delayed approximately 1.2 million tax returns associated with about $9 billion in legitimate refunds for more than an additional 30 days on average.”
While an admirable effort to root out fraud and get returns to their rightful owners, White House officials said the expense is too high and doesn’t work well enough.
“While Americans are paying more of their tax dollars to fight fraud, the agency is spending that money on flawed, outdated technology that doesn’t work,” said a White House insider.
President Trump has vowed to reinvent government practices using ideas from corporate America, changes critics of the IRS and other agencies applaud and believe could lead to new efficiencies.
Trump has put Jared Kushner, his son-in-law in charge of the effort.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
