In light of the increasing ubiquity of data breaches, Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report today recommending that Federal agencies should discontinue knowledge-based verification to strengthen their remote identity proofing processes and that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) should provide guidance in creating alternative identity proofing methods. […]

The House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Subcommittee proposed a total of $24.5 billion for FSGG discretionary budget authority in fiscal year 2020, which includes funding for election security, modernizing the Internal Revenue Services (IRS), and protecting consumer data. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Energy, Veterans Affairs (VA), U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy inappropriately awarded 1,849 contracts to businesses that had tax debts in 2015 and 2016. […]

When it comes to monitoring third-party tax software providers and paid tax preparers, the IRS has limited jurisdiction and controls in place to protect taxpayer information from cyberattacks, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office released Thursday, May 9. […]

The IRS should continue improving its electronic authentication security controls to better protect public-facing applications, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) said in a report last week. […]

The IRS released its Integrated Business Modernization Plan on April 18, offering a six-year road map for the $2.7 billion modernization effort at the agency. […]

The Treasury Department is looking to test and adopt Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technologies to help enable its employees to do “higher-value” work, according to Treasury’s Acting Senior Procurement Executive Harrison Smith. […]

The latest batch of priority open recommendations released April 11 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) calls out existing IT and cybersecurity issues at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the IRS. […]

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Charles Rettig said his agency needs $290 million this year and as much as $2.7 billion in additional funding over the next six years to modernize its IT before the Senate Finance Committee April 10. […]

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reported significant progress for 2018 in combating tax-related identity theft, while adding protection for taxpayers. […]

With Tax Day coming around the corner fast, some congressional Democrats and Republicans are leaning in support of private tax preparation companies by looking to permanently ban the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from creating a free electronic filing system. […]

Pilots and projects involving artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are producing some early wins for Federal agencies in procurement, evaluation, and other areas, government officials said on Thursday. […]

After committing to DevOps – a software development practice that combines development and information technology (IT) operations – two and a half years ago, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made major strides in increasing the speed and efficiency of its IT initiatives, according to Kaschit Pandya, IRS Enterprise Operations deputy associate CIO. […]

The Department of Interior has brought in Alaska’s first statewide CIO, Bill Vajda to fulfill the same role. […]

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released an RFI on Thursday asking for help in finding solutions to collect taxes in the field, including mobile payments, online payments, and other systems. Vendors have until March 21 to respond. […]

The Consolidated Appropriations Act–the bill negotiated by Democrats and Republicans in Congress that could fully fund several Federal agencies and avert another partial government shutdown–features a variety of funding for IT modernization projects at multiple agencies, according to the joint explanatory statement released with the bill: […]

Wednesday negotiations to end the partial government shutdown ended abruptly, with President Donald Trump leaving the room. […]

In a Monday briefing, acting White House budget director Russell T. Vought said that tax refunds will be permitted to be processed during the shutdown. […]

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said last month it established a new program called Pilot IRS that will look to investigate and acquire emerging technologies that will help the agency better serve taxpayers. […]

An inspector general audit to review a cost-saving database migration project within the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) found that inadequate governance of the project led to poor planning and significant delay, delaying cost savings of $12 million. […]

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to record compromised taxpayer identification numbers (TINs) for 89 breaches reported to the agency by outside organizations, putting over 11,000 taxpayers at risk and leading to tax return fraud for 79 citizens, according to an audit conducted by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). […]

As Federal agencies continue to amass vast amounts of data, it’s inevitable that some portion of it won’t hold a ton of value to an agency’s mission. It could be a simple email to schedule your next meeting, or it could be notes scribbled on a Word document and stashed on an agency server. Outside of its immediate use at that point in time, there’s not a strong need to store it in perpetuity. […]

A new GAO report details how Equifax submitted to audits from agencies with which the company had contracts, but declined an offer of help from the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the company’s 2017 data breach that exposed sensitive personal information of 143 million Americans. […]

A report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) finds that the IRS failed to follow FITARA guidelines when purchasing new IT equipment and reporting on the FITARA scorecard. […]

The General Accountability Office said in a report issued today that the Internal Revenue Service made some progress during FY 2017 in addressing information security control issues previously flagged by GAO, but it also said a more recent audit by the watchdog agency covering FY 2017 turned up newly identified control deficiencies – leaving IRS with a total of 154 improvement recommendations at the end FY 2017. […]

In 2016, criminals stole $1.6 billion from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by using false identities to claim fraudulent tax refunds, according to IRS estimates. In a report released today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) zeroes in on IRS’ authentication efforts as a way to reduce fraud and save tax payer dollars, and offers 11 recommendations for IRS consideration. […]

The Government Accountability Office on Thursday released the findings of a review of the Internal Revenue Service’s major IT investments, citing well-known shortcomings in the tax collection agency’s aging technology infrastructure and recommending steps to make better use of the billions IRS spends on IT each year. […]

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

A bill introduced in the House on Thursday would create a series of minimum functionality and security requirements for all Federal government agency public-facing websites and digital services. […]

On Tuesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) online filing and payment portals went down for several hours. Tax Day, the biggest day of the year for IRS, and systems gave only cryptic messages with erroneous dates for “planned maintenance.” No doubt this wasn’t in the plan. […]