IRS
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The Internal Revenue Service has holes that look like Swiss cheese all throughout its business operations. Appropriations at the IRS are down nearly 7 percent over the last four fiscal years. And Congress won't likely pass an appropriations bill that comes close to the $13 billion President Barack Obama requested for the IR-S in fiscal 2016. Staff at the agency's Human Capital Office, Office of Chief Counsel, and Small Business -Self Employed Division has already been cut by 16 to 30 percent. Jay McTigue is director of tax issues for the Government Accountability Office's strategic issues team. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose how years of budget cuts are affecting the IRS.
July 27, 2015 -
The IRS has not, to put it gently, had a great year. National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson's annual report to Congress says the 2015 tax filing season was among the most challenging ever. Several factors, including declining budgets, combined to produce some pretty poor examples of customer service. She joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to review her report.
July 21, 2015 -
It really was that bad. The National Taxpayer Advocate has confirmed in a new report what the IRS long warned about: Taxpayers can forget about getting help from the agency amid budget cuts and staff shortages.
July 16, 2015 -
It'll be a tough road ahead for the next director of the Office of Personnel Management after Katherine Archuleta resigned. That person will enter an agency trying to recover from the biggest known breach of federal employee data in history. But what can they do to ensure success? Danny Werfel has been there, done that. He was brought in to lead the Internal Revenue Service in 2013 after its administrator stepped down due to a series of scandals. Now a director in the Public Sector practice at The Boston Consulting Group, he joined Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to share his experience.
July 13, 2015 -
Budget cuts totaling $1.1 billion over the past five years impacted nearly every fact of the Internal Revenue Service's mission. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says IRS officers answered 25 percent fewer taxpayer phone calls over past four years. And the agency closed 34 percent fewer cases. Computer network downtime topped nearly 66-thousand hours. Matthew Weir is an assistant IG for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose about the kinds of work automated service collection contact representatives and field collection officers do and how it's suffered.
July 09, 2015 -
The crooks are always one step ahead of us. Federal News Radio Senior Correspondent Mike Causey provides tips so that no one robs the Social Security Administration piggy bank.
July 08, 2015 -
The Internal Revenue Service has lost about 10 percent of its budget since 2010. The result of that -- according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration -- is that the IRS can't collect as much tax money as it should be collecting. Don Kettl is a professor at University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose that tax collectors have been unpopular for a long time.
July 07, 2015 -
Is the Social Security Administration being overloaded with calls from citizens trying to reach other federal agencies? Federal News Radio Senior Correspondent Mike Causey ponders this.
July 07, 2015 -
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) would like to see more focus and urgency by the Office of Personnel Management in its response to two major cyber breaches that have put the personnel information of millions of federal employees at risk.
June 23, 2015 -
The IRS would face its smallest budget since 2004 under a plan approved by the House Appropriations Committee yesterday. Members also endorsed steep cuts in federal construction and repairs proposed by the General Services Administration. In all, the committee approved $20.2 billion for financial services and general government funding in 2016. That\'s a 6 percent reduction from 2015 — and what\'s required under sequestration. Emily Kopp joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more on the cuts.
June 18, 2015 -
The IRS would face even greater financial constraints and federal building construction would grind nearly to a halt under a $20.2 billion FY 2016 spending bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee.
June 17, 2015 -
The National Treasury Employees Union says a budget proposal for the IRS would cause \"damaging cuts.\" But Rep. Ander Crenshaw defens his subcommittee\'s proposal.
June 11, 2015 -
Hackers steal personally identifiable information for more than 100,000 taxpayers through the Internal Revenue Service\'s GetTranscript portal. Dean Silverman, former director of the Office of Compliance Analytics and senior adviser to the commissioner at the IRS, is now a senior adviser for Intuit. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose, the IRS can learn a few things from industry about its next steps to combat identity fraud.
June 08, 2015 -
In Senate hearings regarding the recent breach of the Get Transcript system last week, IRS officials said they were \"reviewing options\" to make their online services more secure. They did not mention the agency already has asked vendors for bids on a wide array of new authentication services.
June 08, 2015 -
The Internal Revenue Service is telling a relative handful of technology vendors that it plans to spend almost $130 million to upgrade its identity management systems. The plans would improve upon the technology that hackers breached in last month\'s theft of 100,000 taxpayer records. But they also diverge from a plan that\'s been in the works for years to unite all federal agencies under one authentication system. More from Federal News Radio DoD Reporter Jared Serbu.
June 05, 2015