Kansas City IRS building. The IG's review of follow-up actions was heavily redacted. Image: Ryan Wewers/Shutterstock.com
An inspector general report indicates that security concerns are continuing at IRS facilities after a special review the agency conducted in 2022-2023 resulted in nearly 600 recommendations to improve physical protections around and inside agency workplaces.
That review had been spurred by a request from the NTEU union in response to political rhetoric about the agency and its employees; the IG agreed that “Threats and assaults directed at IRS employees, facilities, and infrastructure impede the effective and safe administration of the federal tax system and the IRS’s ability to collect tax revenue.”
Its review of follow-up actions was heavily redacted, however, for example not disclosing how many of the recommendations have been completed. Some “were awaiting closure approval,” while an undisclosed number of others “have corrective actions that were in process, pending approval, pending the quality review process, or have yet to be completed to address the recommendation.”
In some cases, the recommended corrective measures were rejected or the risk was addressed in another way. In others, the response was complicated by “the length of the federal government’s procurement process, engineering design timeframes, and the reliance on outside entities” such as the GSA. Also, in some cases the IRS is not the sole tenant and therefore “does not have the final authority to implement countermeasures for recommendations.”
The IG further said it separately “identified additional security vulnerabilities” at an undisclosed number of facilities as its auditors worked to verify that changes listed as having been carried out actually were made. It added that “the IRS provides and continues to revise enterprise-wide internal guidance and procedures to protect IRS employees who conduct face-to-face field visits and activities.”
The report made seven recommendations, to which management agreed, but both the recommendations and the promised actions also were redacted.
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