TIGTA Announces Program to Detect, Deter IRS Employee Misconduct

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) announced on Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with the IRS to conduct a program to detect and deter waste, fraud and abuse in IRS programs and operations. The purpose of the program is to protect against attempts to interfere with or corrupt tax administration and to detect and deter misconduct by IRS employees.

To do this, the program will use computers to match information from a wide variety of Treasury and IRS records. These include Treasury and IRS payroll and personnel system records, Taxpayer Advocate service and customer feedback and survey records, Treasury and IRS third-party contact records, the annual list of undelivered refund checks, and e-filing records. In all, 46 types of records will be matched by computer, which TIGTA describes as “the most feasible method for performing comprehensive analysis of data.”

The program is expected to start Sept. 1 and to run through March 31, 2011.