The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) today publicly released its review of the Internal Revenue Service's Modernized Taxpayer Account Program Integration Office (the Program Integration Office).

TIGTA initiated its review in response to a request from the IRS to assess the Program Integration Office's initial efforts to manage the transition of taxpayer account processing to a new modernized environment. This initiative will integrate elements from both the existing Individual Master File and current Customer Account Data Engine (CADE) into a new relational database. The Individual Master File is the IRS database that maintains transactions or records of individual tax accounts. CADE is an IRS database used by the IRS to process some individual income tax returns.

Once completed, the new modernization environment should allow the IRS to more effectively and efficiently update taxpayer accounts, support account settlement and maintenance, and process refunds on a daily basis, which will contribute to improved service to taxpayers.

The Program Integration Office identified risks that must be managed to allow the new CADE strategy to succeed. TIGTA analyzed their findings and identified challenges that the Program Integration Office must address to effectively manage risk.

The challenges include ensuring support for the modernization efforts from other critical IRS organizations; implementing a governance structure for the implementation of the new CADE strategy; employing enough competent technical resources to modify the current programs, while continuing to keep the current system operating; developing a strategy for addressing potential questions and concerns by Congress, the IRS Oversight Board, and other stakeholder groups; and developing contingency plans in the event that the new CADE strategy cannot be fully implemented.

"The IRS has made significant progress in developing the conceptual models for a number of processes, but to enable the successful implementation of the strategy, the IRS must effectively manage the risks that they have identified," commented J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.