The Internal Revenue Service released a request for information May 12 aimed at modernizing the tax agency’s grants managements system.
The RFI is part of the agency’s Pilot IRS program, an IRS initiative aiming to improve the agency’s acquisition speed.
In its RFI, the IRS’ Office of the Procurement Executive wrote that it is seeking to automate its grants management system, provide access to grantees, increasing the simplicity reporting, as well as receive an estimate of the cost of the overhaul relative to the agency’s return on investment.
The grants modernization push may be needed, the RFI read, because a funding boost for an IRS program may lead to a spike in grantees. The IRS runs a program called Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, which provides grants to organizations that train volunteers to help taxpayers file their taxes. A law passed in July 2019 provides $30 million each fiscal year for the program.
“With the increase in funding the IRS anticipates an increase in the number of organizations to support,” the RFI read. “Providing proper oversight, timely correspondence, administering the award timely, and ensuring the funds are available as soon as possible to the organizations are major concerns for the program. The IRS is looking for an end to end automated solution.”
In early April, the IRS released an RFI asking for industry’s ability to deliver a mission-specific version of “The Sims” video game, a popular life simulation game. That solution would help the IRS simulate real life events using artificial tax data.
Andrew Eversden covers all things defense technology for C4ISRNET. He previously reported on federal IT and cybersecurity for Federal Times and Fifth Domain, and worked as a congressional reporting fellow for the Texas Tribune. He was also a Washington intern for the Durango Herald. Andrew is a graduate of American University.
