CSC delivers IRS apps

Computer Sciences Corp. has delivered a series of Web-based applications to support the filing of tax returns online with the Internal Revenue Service as part of the agency's computer system overhaul.

The applications comprise an e-service suite that allow tax professionals and financial institutions to use secure Internet connections for a number of functions, including registering with the IRS and applying for preparer tax identification numbers; receiving authorizations to submit electronic tax returns; submitting power of attorney applications; expediting account resolutions; and simplifying and speeding up the matching of taxpayer ID numbers.

E-services "will vastly improve the accuracy and speed of the IRS' responses to more than a billion queries and transactions each year, bringing about enormous savings and efficiencies for the agency," said Paul Cofoni, president of CSC's federal sector group. (Click to link to CSC news release)

The work will enable the IRS to comply with a Congressional mandate that requires 80 percent of all tax returns to be filed electronically by 2007. The electronic services are part of the tax agency's 15-year megacontract worth $5 billion-$7 billion to modernize its antiquated computer system that holds more than 150 million taxpayer records.

CSC is the project's prime contractor on a team that includes IBM Corp., BearingPoint Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp.'s information technology division, Unisys Corp. and Science Applications International Corp. The IRS awarded its business systems modernization contract to the team in December 1998.

CSC has been criticized by government officials for missing deadlines and accumulating huge cost overruns. But the company promised the IRS in June 2003 that it would deliver seven separate e-services applications that allow agencies to validate taxpayer identification numbers in real-time by the end of 2004.

The El Segundo, Calif.-based systems integrator is No. 3 on Washington Technology's 2004 Top 100 list of federal contractors, ranked according to their prime IT contracting revenue. The company employs about 90,000 workers and had revenue of $14.8 billion for the fiscal year ended April 2, 2004.