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- (-) Department of Agriculture OIG (3)
- (-) Department of Defense OIG (8)
- (-) Department of the Interior OIG (7)
- (-) Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (11)
- Department of Education OIG (8)
- Department of Health & Human Services OIG (27)
- Department of Homeland Security OIG (19)
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- Department of Justice OIG (6)
- Department of Labor OIG (28)
- Department of the Treasury OIG (28)
- Department of Transportation OIG (4)
- Department of Veterans Affairs OIG (17)
- Election Assistance Commission OIG (2)
- Environmental Protection Agency OIG (5)
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation OIG (1)
- General Services Administration OIG (1)
- National Science Foundation OIG (3)
- National Security Agency OIG (1)
- Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (1)
- Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation OIG (2)
- Railroad Retirement Board OIG (5)
- Small Business Administration OIG (23)
- Social Security Administration OIG (3)
- Tennessee Valley Authority OIG (1)
- U.S. Agency for International Development OIG (1)
- U.S. Postal Service OIG (9)
State/Local Agency
State (State and Local Reports)
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Related Organizations
Management Challenges
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Reports
The IRS Continues to Reduce Backlog Inventories in the Tax Processing Centers
On June 6, 2023, we notified the Director, Customer Account Services, Wage and Investment Division, of our concerns regarding the overpayments being erroneously held. We recommended that the IRS identify a process to review and release the overpayments that are being erroneously held. We also recommended that the IRS request programming changes, if needed, to ensure that all accounts with overpayments are identified and release the overpayments where warranted.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should perform an analysis of Tax Year 2019 tax accounts with abated Failure to File penalties due to Notice 2022-36, to identify additional tax accounts for which overpayments are being held from issuance and take the actions needed to systemically release the overpayments where warranted.
COVID-19 - Coronavirus Food Assistance Program - Direct Support
Review and recover the questioned CFAP payments of $1,286,786 resulting from inaccurate and/or unsupported producer certifications.
COVID-19—Farmers to Families Food Box Program Administration
Establish and implement a policy that includes assessing risks and developing effective controls when responding to national emergencies.
Audit of the Reliability of the DoD Coronavirus Disease–2019 Patient Health Data
Rec. 1: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director of the Defense Health Agency work with the Program Executive Officer of the Program Executive Office, Defense Healthcare Management Systems to document and implement the process for identifying and collecting patient health data of DoD patients in the Military Health System in current and future registries within their purview in a written document, such as a standard operating procedure. The procedure should identify, at a minimum, the internal controls throughout the process, the relevant data sources, data fields, and diagnostic codes used in the computer scripts, and should be reviewed and approved when updates occur.
Rec. 2: The DoD OIG recommended that the Senior Contracting Official of the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity and the Chief of the Joint Trauma System work with the Joint Trauma System contracting officer's representative to revise the quality assurance surveillance plan. The plan should include an appropriate sampling methodology for selecting patient health records from the Coronavirus Disease-2019 Registry to verify that the contractor is achieving the contract-required accuracy rate for entering patient data, and submit the revised quality assurance surveillance plan to the contracting officer.
Rec. 2: The DoD OIG recommended that the Senior Contracting Official of the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity and the Chief of the Joint Trauma System work with the Joint Trauma System contracting officer's representative to revise the quality assurance surveillance plan. The plan should include an appropriate sampling methodology for selecting patient health records from the Coronavirus Disease-2019 Registry to verify that the contractor is achieving the contract-required accuracy rate for entering patient data, and submit the revised quality assurance surveillance plan to the contracting officer.
Rec. 3: The DoD OIG recommended that the Chief of the Joint Trauma System conduct an analysis to determine whether the patient data entered into the Coronavirus Disease-2019 Registry met the 90 percent accuracy rate requirement for contract W81XWH-20-P-0197 and contract W81XWH-22-C-0151.
Rec. 3.a: If the contractor did not meet the 90 percent accuracy requirement, the DoD OIG recommended that the Chief of the Joint Trauma System work with the Senior Contracting Official of the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity to update the contractor's rating in the contractor's performance assessment reports for contract W81XWH-22-C-0151 and contract W81XWH-20-P-0197, when feasible.
Rec. 3.b: If the contractor did not meet the 90 percent accuracy requirement, the DoD OIG recommended that the Chief of the Joint Trauma System work with the Senior Contracting Official of the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity to recoup any of the $3.9 million in questioned costs paid for services that did not comply with the terms of contract W81XWH-20-P-0197, if feasible.
Rec. 3.c: If the contractor did not meet the 90 percent accuracy requirement, the DoD OIG recommended that the Chief of the Joint Trauma System work with the Senior Contracting Official of the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity to recoup any of the $2.3 million in questioned costs paid for services that did not comply with the terms of contract W81XWH-22-C-0151.
Rec. 3.d: If the contractor did not meet the 90 percent accuracy requirement, the DoD OIG recommended that the Chief of the Joint Trauma System work with the Senior Contracting Official of the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity to consider all available contract remedies for contract W81XWH-22-C-0151, including modifying and, if necessary, terminating and re-competing the contract, and take action to ensure that the Department receives full value for the funds it expends for contract W81XWH-22-C-0151.
Rec. 3.e: If the contractor did not meet the 90 percent accuracy requirement, the DoD OIG recommended that the Chief of the Joint Trauma System work with the Senior Contracting Official of the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity to delegate an official to review the concerns identified in this report, including the actions of the contracting officials, and take administrative actions, as necessary. The review should include a determination on whether the contractor's performance assessment reports were accurate and make updates as necessary.
Rec. 4.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director of the Defense Health Agency work with the Chief of the Joint Trauma System establish and implement a process for selecting Coronavirus Disease-2019 events for entry into the Coronavirus Disease-2019 Registry to limit selection bias.
Rec. 4.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director of the Defense Health Agency work with the Chief of the Joint Trauma System to include a bias disclosure notice on all reports generated from the Coronavirus Disease-2019 Registry until the Coronavirus Disease-2019 Registry data represent the population of DoD patients who had a Coronavirus Disease-2019 event.
Rec. 5.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) establish and implement a policy for developing and populating patient registries that aligns with the Department of Health and Human Services best practices, "Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes: A User?s Guide," current edition.
Rec. 5.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) conduct a review of all patient registries in the Military Health System to verify the reliability of data in each registry and implement corrective actions, as necessary.
American Rescue Plan Act: Assessment of the Expanded Child and Dependent Care and Earned Income Tax Credits
On February 17, 2022, we notified the Director, Submission Processing, Wage and Investment Division, of our concern with three business rules and recommended that IRS management update the business rule programming to identify and evaluate returns for both refundable and nonrefundable CDCC claims.
Ensure that programming is updated for Processing Year 2023 to identify taxpayers who reported an obviously invalid care provider TIN on Form 2441.
Develop a tool or programming for Error Resolution to ensure that tax returns claiming prior year expenses are systemically identified to determine if the maximum CDCC had been claimed in the prior year, before processing the return and potentially releasing erroneous refunds.
Work with the Department of the Treasury, Office of Tax Policy, to advance legislation to treat a tax return as filed only when it is accepted. This would remove the legal risks associated with rejecting tax returns with conditions that indicate the taxpayer is ineligible for refundable credits claimed on the return.
If legislation is enacted, develop programming to reject e-filed returns meeting certain conditions, such as those noted in this report.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should ensure that the compliance filter criteria for identifying individuals claiming self-only EITC who are not eligible for work is updated to include the *************************.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should establish processes to compare subsequent legislative changes with compliance filter
programming to identify and make necessary changes, as needed.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should review the 774,559 returns with self-only EITC from potentially ineligible ******** and take actions needed to recover credits that are determined to be erroneous.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should complete examinations for all 61 tax returns we identified to ensure taxpayers receive the correct CDCC amounts.
American Rescue Plan Act: Review of the Reconciliation of the Child Tax Credit
Review all of the 6,833 taxpayers with excess Child Tax Credit identified during our review and take appropriate actions to ensure that the taxpayers receive the correct amount of the Child Tax Credit.
Identify additional taxpayers after May 5, 2022, who received excess Child Tax Credit as a result of tax examiner error and take appropriate actions to ensure that these taxpayers receive the correct amount of the Child Tax Credit.
Review the 105 taxpayers who potentially did not receive all of their eligible Child Tax Credit identified during our review and take appropriate actions to ensure that they receive the correct amount of the Child Tax Credit.
Evaluate the priority of programming to ensure that processes and procedures are developed to identify and correct tax examiner entries input during the error correction process that exceed statutory limits, including a process to systemically reprocess corrected returns through Error Resolution programming before being released for processing.
On February 17, 2022, we notified IRS management of our concerns with undeliverable payments that post after the processing of the tax return. In these instances, the IRS processed the tax return as if the payment was received by the taxpayer. As a result, the taxpayer would receive less Child Tax Credit than they are eligible to receive. We recommended that the IRS develop a process to identify undeliverable payments after
processing of the TY 2021 tax return.
Identify taxpayers with advance payments who have yet to file a TY 2021 tax return and send a reminder notice, similar to the Department of the Treasury, using the advance payments as part of the criteria.
Work with the Commissioner, Small Business/Self-Employed Division, to create a process to recover potentially erroneous advance payments from taxpayers who have not filed a TY 2021 tax return.
American Rescue Plan Act: Continued Review of Premium Tax Credit Provisions
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, and the Commissioner, Small Business/Self-Employed Division, should consider expanding the use of soft notices to address potentially erroneous PTC claims. These notices should provide individuals with information specific to the eligibility or reporting requirements related to the potential error the IRS identified and suggest the filing of an amended return, if an error has
occurred.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should notify the 317,418 taxpayers we identified, who potentially received less PTC than they were entitled or repaid more APTC than required, that they may qualify for additional PTC or overpaid APTC and encourage them to file an amended Tax Year 2021 return, if applicable.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should notify the 317,418 taxpayers we identified, who potentially received less PTC than they were entitled or repaid more APTC than required, that they may qualify for additional PTC or overpaid APTC and encourage them to file an amended Tax Year 2021 return, if applicable.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should develop processes, such as the use of courtesy letters to notify individuals of their potential eligibility, to proactively assist taxpayers who, based on available tax return and Exchange data, potentially claimed less PTC than entitled or paid more APTC than required.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should develop processes, such as the use of courtesy letters to notify individuals of their potential eligibility, to proactively assist taxpayers who, based on available tax return and Exchange data, potentially claimed less PTC than entitled or paid more APTC than required.
On October 26, 2022, we notified the Director, Submission Processing, of our concerns regarding taxpayers who are potentially eligible for additional PTC based on their unemployment status during Tax Year 2021. We recommended that the Director, Submission Processing, notify these taxpayers that they may qualify for additional PTC or be able to reduce the amount of excess APTC they must repay and encourage them to file an amended Tax Year 2021 return, if they qualify.
On October 25, 2022, we notified the Director, Submission Processing, of our concerns with the draft Tax Year 2022 Form 8962 instructions. We
recommended that the IRS revise the instructions to inform taxpayers that they have an option to set a domestic violence indicator on their tax return.
Recurring Identification Is Needed to Ensure That Employers Full Pay the Deferred Social Security Tax
The Commissioner, Small Business/Self-Employed Division, should ensure that the 3,231 tax accounts are updated to reflect the correct balance due.
The Commissioner, Small Business/Self-Employed Division, should continue to identify new tax accounts with a Social Security tax deferral at least through Calendar Year 2024 to ensure that all unpaid deferrals are identified for collection as appropriate.
Additional Actions Are Needed to Reduce Accounts Management Function Inventories to Below Pre‑Pandemic Levels
Ensure that all sites understand and begin immediately stamping the ICT received date after correspondence screening is completed, and that individual and business documents are screened with equal importance.
Coordinate with the Information Technology organization to explore adding Taxpayer Relations inventories into the CII, so that all Accounts Management inventory is located in the same inventory management system.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should establish time frames for and a process to measure correspondence screening timeliness at each site.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should rescind the requirement that only the TEs and the CSRs perform correspondence
screening and encourage all sites to use mail clerks, after providing them with adequate training.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should ensure prompt completion of the ICT review to determine if additional scanners will be
purchased.
Discontinue correspondence screening via telework and ensure at all sites that screening must be conducted in the same IRS facility where documents are being scanned by the ICT.
Identify and address the cause of Accounts Management function employees incorrectly routing cases to other IRS functions and work with other IRS functions to update their Internal Revenue Manuals to make it clear that incorrectly routed documents should be returned to the
originating employee.
We recommended that management take steps to hire as many mail clerks as possible.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should establish goals for each of the Accounts Management function’s inventory types and develop a plan for addressing those goals to ensure a timely return to pre-pandemic inventory levels.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment, should prioritize funding and implementation of automated processing of Forms 1040-X to increase efficiencies and reduce taxpayer burden.
The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should implement temporary solutions for the processing of Forms 1040-X to reduce the backlogs, reduce taxpayer burden, and save IRS resources until an automated solution is implemented.
Coordinate with the Information Technology organization to prevent generating transcripts for manual refunds less than $100 and adjust the frequency that some transcripts are generated to help management get through the inventory more efficiently.
Temporarily relieve employees in the Accounts Management function from having to complete paperwork for barred statutes, so they can focus on eliminating the backlogged inventory and prevent future barred statutes.
Audit of DoD Actions Taken to Implement Cybersecurity Protections Over Remote Access Software in the Coronavirus Disease–2019 Telework Environment
Rec. A.1: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director of the U.S. Southern Command - Joint Interagency Task Force South Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber and Intelligence direct its network administrators to scan the VMware Horizon main virtual desktop for malware in accordance with the McAfee Endpoint Security Technical Implementation Guide, develop compensating controls, or formally accept the risk of not scanning the main virtual desktop.
Rec. A.2.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Chief Information Officer of the Department of the Air Force revise its policy to align with the Windows 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide requirement for disabling inactive user accounts after no more than 35 days.
Rec. A.2.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Chief Information Officer of the Department of the Air Force direct network and system administrators to disable inactive user accounts after no more than 35 days of inactivity in accordance with the Windows 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide, develop compensating controls, or formally accept the risk of not disabling the inactive user accounts.
Rec. A.3: The DoD OIG recommended that the Chief Information Officer of the Naval Surface Warfare Center - Panama City Division direct network and system administrators to disable inactive user accounts after no more than 35 days of inactivity in accordance with the Windows 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide, develop compensating controls, or formally accept the risk of not disabling the inactive user accounts.
Rec. A.4.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Chief Information Officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency revise its policy to align with the Windows 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide requirement for disabling inactive users after no more than 35 days.
Rec. A.4.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Chief Information Officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency direct network and system administrators to disable inactive user accounts after no more than 35 days of inactivity in accordance with the Windows 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide, develop compensating controls, or formally accept the risk of not disabling the inactive user accounts.
Rec. A.5.a: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director of the Marine Corps Information Command, Control, Communications, and Computers revise the organization's policy to align with the Windows 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide requirement for disabling inactive users after no more than 35 days.
Rec. A.5.b: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director of the Marine Corps Information Command, Control, Communications, and Computers direct network and system administrators to disable inactive user accounts after no more than 35 days of inactivity in accordance with the Windows 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide, develop compensating controls, or formally accept the risk of not disabling the inactive user accounts.
Rec. A.6: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency Joint Service Provider direct network and system administrators to disable inactive user accounts after no more than 35 days of inactivity in accordance with the Windows 10 Security Technical Implementation Guide, develop compensating controls, or formally accept the risk of not disabling the inactive user accounts.
Rec. B.1: The DoD OIG recommended that the Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency Joint Service Provider direct network and system administrators to revise the vulnerability management program to include mitigation timeframes for all vulnerabilities and develop plans of actions and milestones for all vulnerabilities that cannot be mitigated in a timely manner.