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IRS Whistleblower Programme Still Needs Improvement
Source:
tax-news.com
- May 11, 2012
by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington
11 May 2012
The whistleblower programme operated by the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has still not fully and adequately addressed internal problems that were identified several years ago, according to a report issued by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
The IRS has the authority to pay awards to whistleblowers for credible information relating to violations of the tax code that result in the federal government's recovery of taxes, penalties and interest. The programme was created in 2007 to manage and track whistleblower claims from initial receipt to final closure, including determining appropriate award amounts.
In August 2009, TIGTA issued a report citing deficiencies in the IRS's internal controls and timely resolution of whistleblower claims. The objective of the recent report was therefore to follow up on the adequacy of the corrective actions the IRS agreed to take that year, but it found that the IRS was still not fully and adequately addressing those internal control weaknesses.
In the prior report, TIGTA found that information captured on three inventory systems was inaccurate. In this review, auditors determined that employees manually transferred claim information from the three systems into a single inventory control system, Entellitrak. However, IRS officials did not ensure steps were taken to reconcile and correct the inaccurate information that was reported in TIGTA’s 2009 review.
TIGTA also determined that, while whistleblower programme officials did implement a quality review process to ensure claims are accurately controlled in the Entellitrak system, guidance to employees did not specify that employees review the received date of a claim, which is critical when reporting business results to internal and external stakeholders.
During this review, TIGTA also determined that timeliness standards for processing claims have not been fully established, and the existing monitoring process was not fully developed to improve efficiencies with processing whistleblower claims in the IRS operating divisions.
"Without adequate oversight of whistleblower claims, the IRS is not as effective as it could be in responding timely to tax noncompliance issues," said J. Russell George, the TIGTA. "The IRS's effort to improve compliance is critical to reducing the tax gap and maintaining the integrity of the voluntary tax compliance system."
In August 2011, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) also issued a report on the IRS's whistleblower programme that included eight recommendations. These recommendations focused on the IRS collecting more information in its claim tracking system and case processing activities, and incorporating more data when reporting on the effectiveness of the programme.
TIGTA made no recommendations in this report because the IRS is currently addressing the GAO's report recommendations. The IRS has said that it plans to fully implement its corrective actions to the GAO report by October 15, 2012.
Category: IRS
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