IRS modernization accelerates with Inflation Reduction Act funds
Gettyimages.com/Hisham Ibrahim
By
Nick Wakeman
Officials at the IRS and Treasury highlight multi-year funding, cross-disciplinary teams and enhanced user experience as among the key impacts.
President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022 and it is having a significant impact at the Internal Revenue Service only two years in.
Guy Torres, deputy chief procurement officer at the Treasury Department and the procurement lead for the IRS, often referred to the IRA during his remarks at Washington Technology's Doing Business with Treasury event held Friday,
These are my quick impressions from his talk and a Q&A with Brandon Szabo, chief of user experience and design at the IRS. Keep an eye out for more analysis soon. But the IRA was mentioned enough by Torres and Szabo that I wanted to dash off some highlights.
The IRA is the first-ever law that establishes multi-year, obligated funds for the IRS. That is helping the agency with modernization efforts and has led to some restructuring that is underway in Torres’ office.
For example, the procurement office is creating tiger teams that will bring in multiple disciplines to drive better requirement writing and smarter procurements.
Torres wants to move away from IT requirements being written by one team and mission-focused requirements being written by another team. He said both to interact and work together.
The IRA specifically calls out improved user experience. For Szabo’s team, that push has raised its profile and brought them into conversations around new capabilities sooner.
Like Torres, he also spoke about how cross-discipline communication and cooperation were critical to success.
One bit of advice to industry is to think about how they can help Torres and his team “get to yes” with their customers inside the IRS.
The worst position to be in is to say No, Torres said. Conversations have to take place early in the process as does the need for transparency, he said.
Nate Nash, co-founder of GovTribe, said there isn’t a check box for IRA-related procurements. But during his presentation on Treasury spending, he recommended industry the law mentioned in procurement documents coming out of agencies.
I used the GovTribe artificial tool and found some contracts that are backed by IRA funding.
For one example, the IRA calls for the modernization of the IRS Business Master File system. A solicitation is expected later this month. A second example is a special notice that went out for training and consulting services for revenue agencies and economists.
One message that Torres and Szabo sent is that it is worth tracking IRA-related opportunities. The money is there, but the initiatives also support the IRS mission.