that ticking you hear is time running out on the irs.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
america is a great nation but not without its occasional embarrassment. one of the lesser-known national ignominies is the patched-up, jury-rigged studebaker at the core of the irs information technology system.
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studebaker didn’t manufacture the individual master file system, but the company was producing the lark at about the same time the imf was installed at the irs in the early 1960s. studebaker has long since gone out of business, and larks are as dead as dinosaurs, but the imf is still chugging away.
the national taxpayer advocate report to congress likens the imf to a 1960s car that has been souped up with bluetooth, gps, and anti-lock brakes, but it’s still an old car that isn’t going very fast and shouldn’t be on the road.
231 legacy systems
the incredibly antiquated imf isn’t the only “legacy system” at work at the world’s largest tax collection agency. the treasury inspector general for tax administration has identified 231 legacy systems – that is, systems more than 25 years old – 45 of which are due for modernization, with another 34 that should have been retired long ago.
a failure of the imf or other core system would be catastrophic for an agency that harvests $3.6 trillion in taxes every year, in the process touching virtually every american citizen. the state of the current irs core it system has been termed “a ticking time bomb.”
the imf is slated to be replaced by a new system, the customer account data engine 2 (cade 2). unfortunately, the irs is not expected to complete the second phase of upgrade until 2024, and even that might be an impossible dream. the irs has been working on cade 2 since 2016, but every time there’s a budget cut, hiring freeze or change in scope, the project has to be “rebaselined” to account for changes in the irs and general technology.
and then along came a pandemic and a shutdown.
if there are budget cuts, operational shutdowns, loss of key personnel or other interruptions between now and 2024, the development of cade 2 could recede even further into the future.
modernization plan
overhauling its it system is only part of the irs integrated modernization plan that was released in 2019. its goal is “more than the replacement of aged infrastructure, software products, and outdated code … it will also address how irs workforce processes and culture will evolve to sustain ongoing innovation and transformation.”
a month later after the launch of the plan, nancy sieger was named chief information officer and handed the keys to the federal studebaker, which had been installed just a few years before her birth.
the four pillars of the modernization plan are:
- improvement of taxpayer and tax preparer experience
- overhaul of core tax systems to provide quicker and easier tax filing. the overhaul includes development of the cade 2 and an enterprise case management system. the ecm will replace over 60 discrete case management systems, centralizing any given taxpayer’s history for easy reference.
- modernization of irs operations by accelerating emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and robotic automation
- cybersecurity and data protection
the tas report warns that the irs needs not only more funding but more consistent funding.
if congress fails to pass timely appropriations bills, all funding is frozen at the previous year’s level. under such circumstances, the irs could be forced to shift it spending to more urgent needs while the studebaker bomb keeps going tick… tick… tick…
14 responses to “the irs studebaker bomb”
joe wenzel
the author makes very good arguments and points for upgrades.
while i am not an irs fan, i can appreciate that the irs is working with inadequate and antiquated systems.
it is sad to say that the government is not capable of fixing the mess that congress has created with tax changes almost annually.
some provisions made in future years and others immediate, and more recently retroactive, not to mention bills passed in the last week or weeks of december, which result in hurried tax form changes, which then result in corrections.
i believe congress is the real problem here, they need to be called to account for all of it.
those who think the system don’t need updating may want to try to serve their clients with columnar pads, calculators and paper tax forms.
john cuciak
the staff at the irs is discouraged because the supervisors are expecting too much. the last auditor i worked with said she could not quit the irs since she has 20 years in but by the time the audit was done she did quit due to the pressures expected by supervisors who did not do their jobs.
the irs is outsourcing collections to private bill collectors who then can harass taxpayers based on often bogus assessments with too much interest and penalties.
i respect the employees of the irs but there are some that are not doing their jobs but are sucking up the pay and benefits. i heard the irs got sued for not paying overtime and then put pressure on agents to not work at home, after hours or weekends but still expected 30 audits a month produced.
l s melton
the irs has one arm and both legs tied up by the conditions aptly described by lm weigel above.
having been in the tax and accounting profession for many years, it never ceased to amaze that irs staff, who each collected tax revenues many multiples more than their cost to the irs budget, were being cut out of the budget. on the whole, irs reps were efficient and businesslike though hampered by clunky systems.
it’s undermining diligent taxpayers and the vitality and prosperity of our country that funds to examine and collect lawful taxes have not been appropriated for years.
taking these logical steps could have collected so much revenue, that contemporary and forward-looking technology could have been well on its way to implementation by now. one only has to look at your own sleek cell phone and office equipment and its capabilities which are being exponentially furthered, to know that the irs should be funded for new effective systems.
the policy and legislative decisions to cut the very costs (up-to-date computer systems, technology, and professional staff) that administer and collect taxes are counterproductive. let’s hope the policies are not intended to create the problem – some people purposely not paying their taxes, and others confounded by a massive patchwork of inadequate technologies and abstruse tax laws.
i don’t know the figures, but if 90% of taxpayers pay their taxes responsibly on the honor system, that’s great and amazing! but what about the other 10% (or whatever %) of uncollected revenues? think about how far that revenue could go. maybe it could go to help all the students and budding entrepreneurs in the us grow more financially successful, and, bravo, more revenue or even proper tax breaks to get everyone on board.
yes, ethics and protection against weaknesses and overstep of technological systems are paramount. but should or even could we eschew the new methods that continue to create opportunities and develop life potential? ethics are not out of fashion, nor are they a new invention. they are foundational to civilization.
would our legislative branch please prioritize getting proper expertise and making these investments to serve the people and the interests and security of the united states of america as a whole? these are profound matters of good governance.
thank you, dear public servants and tax preparers!
doug cunningham
hey, don’t knock the studebaker lark.
that’s what i learned to drive on, 50 years ago (almost to my 50th anniversary when i first got my driver’s license)…then, it was a manual/clutch transmission, so you really became skillful in-car operation.
when i drove in the high school driver ed car, it was really easy… all you had to do was guide the car. my parents had studebakers up to the time they purchased the lark for around $2,000 in 1962, and it survived into the early 1970’s.
so the gist is: studebakers were half-decent cars during the era when we had real silver dimes, quarters, and half-dollars…
those were the days…
cd giedt
the irs has no priority system for operations.
to be blunt, the irs has pissed away its budget on to many dreams of the commissioners.
today we are spending way too much money on translating irs forms into other languages.
multilingual forms is a ” nice ” idea, but think about it, the ir code is difficult enough to understand in one language, why complicate it?? but off the irs goes spending millions on foreign language with to the best of my knowledge, no congressional mandate to do so.
congress needs to define and legislate specific performance for the irs.
start with defining timely acknowledgment and response to its mail and faxes.
how about 48 hours to acknowledge a fax received.
how about 5 business days to acknowledge receipt of a letter, specifically confirming the date of the letter, not the date received, not the post mark, but the date on the letter.
further congress needs to legislate 30-, 60- and 90-day resolution replies, congress needs to legislate specific employee assignments and responsibility for response and resolution.
the wacko legislation called “the taxpayer first” act, is a pipe dream.
until congress appoints a joint congressional oversight committee, nothing will ever happen.
the covid-19 pandemic has provided continued “shelter” for irs delays.
tell me how has the usps managed to keep working and the irs has been closed???
unfortunately, all of us could go on ad nauseum.
i will stop now.
joe
let’s not kid ourselves. irs has become a monster – dare i mention other federal agencies?
sometimes you need to administer the old stake-in-the-hear procedure. it’s a tough decision to disconnect the life support system. yes it’s sad and will be messy.
cpas will be needed to bury the remains.
scott killen
unlike cars, software generally does not deteriorate with age.
new software is almost always less reliable than established, older software.
unless there is some overriding need, the irs should, for any critical system, avoid the instability that accompanies modernization.
lm weigel
…which is why you are still using a pet commodore 64 today, right? ;)
the growing number of inaccurate irs notices, processing delays, and system crashes suggest that the old software in question is hardly reliable.
and the *true* cost of obsolescence is the very high cost of the “tax gap” and the “audit lottery” in which filers test how much they can get away with and not get caught.
in 1962, there were 18 million 1040 forms filed, all on paper. in 2012, 50 years later, that number had more than octupled, the vast majority of which were electronically filed.
meanwhile, the irs has become a “political football” with certain members of congress clinging to the absurd notion that it is somehow “taxpayer-friendly” to underfund the agency charged with collecting the funds to run our nation.
the irs is far from perfect, and computer upgrades are always bumpy.
but unless you’re still using computers that rely upon reel-to-reel tapes, you’ve seen the value in upgrading your systems.
why would anyone think the agency that collects the funds to support our nation would be different?
elizabeth
wow. i don’t think so.
rudy
im a cpa now retired having represented clients before the irs for decades. the irs is woefully underfunded, understaffed undertrained. they need to moderize, upgrade technology and train and retain staff just to keep up with the ridiculously complex and inconsistent tax code that the idiots in congress pass.
maintaining the status quo only makes an already bad situation worse.
sarasota cpa
all that water rushing over the top of the dam, around its foundation walls, and under the footings is the lost tax revenues irs is clueless about from the underground and non-reporting underground economy.
you know, the guy on payroll 3 days a week at home depot who uses his leads at retail hours, where he earns a $300 a week paycheck, to do another 40 hours a week repairing people’s garage doors, replacing roofs, and painting their living rooms – all discounted if the customer will pay cash.
the missing tax revenue in the unreported and highly entrepreneurial hispanic, black, and ‘low income’ blue-collar communities is legendary.
multiply him by about 45,000,000. meanwhile, the lack of irs ai systems, unprecedented senior staff turnover and retirements, and ‘all hands on deck’ work assignments to get the congressional stimulus play-doh out in the hands of the once hard-working american middle class and unemployed/choose not to work/soap opera watching class has sapped the service’s energy and morale.
as our ‘reported’ income, expense, and other transactional evidence accumulated for proper tax reporting increasingly is tracked by studebaker, a world of potential and legitimate tax revenue – including untold self-employment taxes that would be devoted to social security and medicare funding – escapes irs’ grasp.
as the economy explodes and in more complicated ways, our national treasury’s collection machine trods along not so much like a forgotten south bend automotive icon, but a 19th-century horse and buggy contraption.
bruce holloway
you are correct with regard to lost revenue, but i sincerely doubt that our governments spending habits would improve if they had more money . . .
lm weigel
that is the exact same logic people use to justify cheat on their taxes… “well, the government will only waste it, so why should i pay tax?”
that “race to the bottom” mentality does more to damage our country than perhaps any other. if only “suckers and losers” pay their fair share, and “smart” people don’t, then our country won’t be around to debate issues like this 50 years from now.
the fact of the matter is that it takes money to run a nation, and that money comes from taxes, and taxes mean that someone needs to administer the taxes. if you don’t like the tax code, talk to congress — they write it. if you don’t like federal spending, talk to congress — they spend it.
but if you think, as i do, that it’s ridiculous for congress to charge an agency with enforcing a tax code congress writes… so there is money for federal programs that congress creates… and then refuse to properly fund the agency that administers the tax code and collects the funds… and then to blame that underfunded agency for not doing a stellar job of things… well… the word for that is “scapegoating.” and scapegoating is a darn poor way to run a country.
les orr
i know that it is popular to promote the development of new software and criticize old software. nonetheless, if something has been working for over half a century, it probably has been debugged by now.
the same is true of other treasury, federal reserve, and nasa software. it would be naive to believe that newly developed software is bug-free on day one.
if you don’t believe that, look at how frequently windows is updated (daily?).
the best, most accurate, and reliable set of books i ever audited was from punch cards, a sorter, and an accumulating printer.