When one senator asked how the agency could still be using such old systems when it spends over $2 billion a year on information technology operations, [IRS Commissioner John] Koskinen explained that the money has been going into upgrading its systems, which were customized for the IRS in the 1950s and 1960s. "
It's like driving a Model T that now has a great GPS system and wonderful sound system, [and] has a rebuilt engine," he said.
IRS says it's using technology from JFK's time [CNN Money]
Our favorite corner of the Federal bureaucracy, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, has come out with a new report today that admits that the IRS current method of sending notices and letters is costing us – taxpayers – millions because so much of it is undeliverable. This happens for various reasons, including nearly 25% of instances where recipients may or may not have physically threatened their mail carrier.
TIGTA Report: Current Practices Are Preventing a Reduction in the Volume of Undeliverable Mail
The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) current method of sending notices and letters is costing taxpayers millions of dollars because it results in a large amount of undeliverable mail, according to a report publicly released today by the Treasury Office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
The IRS sends out approximately 200 million notices and letters each year to individual and business taxpayers and their representatives at a cost of $141 million. In 2009, approximately 19.3 million of those mailings were returned to the IRS at an estimated cost of $57.9 million.
TIGTA assessed whether the IRS can reduce the volume of undeliverable mail. Its review of a random sample of 331 notices and letters returned to the IRS found that 37 percent were undeliverable because of invalid or nonexistent addresses; 35 percent had the wrong address; 24 percent were refused by the taxpayer or the taxpayer was not at home to receive the certified or registered mail; and four percent were returned for other reasons.
TIGTA recommended that the IRS allow taxpayers to submit a change of address over the telephone and improve its systems for identifying known bad addresses. TIGTA also recommended implementing a standardized procedure for processing undeliverable mail.
“The Internal Revenue Service needs to take advantage of the latest technologies and systems now available to cut down on undeliverable mail, thereby saving the taxpayers money,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
In response, the IRS agreed with all of TIGTA’s recommendations and has begun the process of planning to implement them.
So, in other words, the IRS is partly responsible for several instances of the following:
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