The inspector general for tax administration has called for a more detailed cost-benefit analysis of the Internal Revenue Service’s expected migration to a new department-wide e-travel system.
IRS officials requested the audit because they believe it’s a bad idea to make the transition to the new system as mandated by a requirement established in 2002, according to the IG report.
All federal agencies are expected to have transitioned to one of three e-travel systems by September and the IRS, if not granted a waiver, would have to migrate to Northrop Grumman Mission Systems’ “GovTrip” system.
The IG said that while the General Services Administration and Treasury department project savings of $29 million over eight years in travel management costs, that IRS officials say implementing GovTrip would actually wind up costing the agency $39 million more than the existing system over the same period.
Each of the 10 Treasury bureaus that have implemented GovTrip have run into technical difficulties, and as of last May, the department’s GovTrip helpdesk had received on average 1.26 requests for help for each document processed, while the IRS helpdesk for the existing travel system got just 0.10 requests for each document processed.
