IAP Worldwide Continues its Record of Failure - With Your Tax Returns crossposted from unbossed
Got your attention? Well, it's all true. Throughout March, in story after story unbossed writers revealed the role private contractor IAP played in the horrible conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. [Those stories can be found using the site search box or scrolling through the March archive.]
Got your attention? Well, it's all true. Throughout March, in story after story unbossed writers revealed the role private contractor IAP played in the horrible conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. [Those stories can be found using the unbossed site search box or scrolling through the unbossed March archive.]
According to IAP Worldwide's March 28, 2007 press release, things are not only going well with its IRS data contracts, IAP has matters well in hand. link
IAP Worldwide Services., Inc. today announced that it has reached an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service on a schedule for IAP to assume responsibility for managing the storage and organization of paper documents at five IRS files activity sites this summer and through early fall. IAP assumed files work at the Kansas City, Mo., and Ogden IRS sites on Dec. 1, 2006.
Under the 5-year contract with the IRS, IAP is responsible for helping organize and store paper tax documents at seven IRS locations across the United States, and delivering them to IRS representatives upon request. IAP performs the work under the direction of the IRS, which imposes and monitors strict administrative controls and procedures to assure the security of taxpayer data.
IAP and the IRS have been working closely together to ensure a smooth transition to IAP’s contract. Both IAP and the IRS are committed to success in operating IAP’s contract to manage the storage and organization of tax returns at the seven IRS locations, and both are committed to maintaining the security and integrity of the IRS mission.
IAP has hired the requisite number of employees and submitted them for IRS security clearance processing in a timely fashion. The IRS has agreed to expedite its personnel security clearance process for these new employees to fully support IAP’s transition at the five remaining sites.
According to the new agreement, IAP will assume responsibility at the five remaining sites according to the following schedule: Cincinnati (Aug. 6); Andover (Aug. 20); Austin (Sept. 4); Fresno (Sept. 17); and Atlanta (Oct. 1). The IRS has agreed to consider an accelerated transition date of June 1, 2007 at the Cincinnati site.
Sixty days before IAP starts work at each of the five remaining sites, IAP and IRS will conduct a 'joint readiness review' to ensure a smooth transition to IAP operations.
Well, after events at WRAMC you can see why everyone would prefer a smooth transition. But the reality is quite different, as unbossed reported a couple weeks ago: "The agency reports that it is planning to reduce a $103 million contract with IAP Worldwide Services, changing the plan to outsource its data collections from seven centers to just two." That is a quote from the NTEU, which throughout both the events at Walter Reed and with the IRS, has been proved highly accurate.
Here is what NTEU has to say about the IAP contract:
IAP Worldwide Delays Again Implementation of $103 Million Contract at IRS
Washington, D.C.— Yesterday the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced to its workers that, in the wake of the failure of an outside contractor to live up to its obligations under a contract, IRS employees will be responsible for performing work that was awarded to the private firm.
"Once again employees are picking up the pieces of a failed contracting effort at the IRS," said Colleen M. Kelley, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). "This is not the first time IRS workers have had to clean up behind a contractor and, sadly, I suspect it will not be the last."
The announcement by the IRS informed employees that full implementation of a 5-year, $103 million contract between the agency and IAP Worldwide Services to file and maintain tax returns and related documents would be delayed for the second time.
The contract — in which IAP Worldwide was to take over the files work at seven IRS sites across the country — was originally awarded in May of 2006. The contractor was to assume work at each site on Dec. 1, 2006, but just days before the start date IRS announced that IAP would begin work at only two sites and would take over files work at the remaining sites six months later — June of 2007.
The latest timetable now has IAP assuming its obligations to the IRS and America’s taxpayers in August of this year at only one of the remaining sites. The other sites will be staffed by IAP on a rolling basis through October.
"If this new schedule holds true, it will be a full 16 months for IAP to assume this work," President Kelley said. "I have to wonder why this is taking so long. Was the contractor simply not prepared to take over, despite being awarded the contract, or is the agency unable to manage its contracts to ensure a smooth implementation?"
Whatever the reason, Kelley added, it is the IRS employees who are stepping up to ensure that the work gets done.
This latest announcement of the failure of IAP follows a troubled competition for the work. In 2003 the IRS began the process of putting out for bid the work of federal employees responsible for the files work. These private taxpayer files, containing financial information and Social Security numbers for million of taxpayers, were kept for up to one year at one of the IRS campus sites across the country before being transferred to a central federal facility.
In 2005, the work was awarded to the employees only to have a protest filed by a losing private sector company. That protest resulted in the IRS reexamining the bids and ultimately awarding the work to IAP Worldwide.
"This delay in performance likely results in extra costs to the IRS not factored into IAP's bid," President Kelley said, "calling into question whether the cost of the IAP bid really is less than that proposed by the federal employees currently performing the work."
To date, the IRS has said nothing about what, if any, penalties it might apply to IAP for its continuing failure to perform appropriately. IAP is the same contractor that has been in the news lately for issues ranging from Katrina hurricane relief to the Walter Reed scandal.
"Of course, none of this would have been an issue," President Kelley said, "if the IRS had kept the files work in the hands of its own employees who were capably performing the job."
Not He Said - She Said
The NTEU's version of events is backed by no other than that capitalist tool - Forbes Magazine. According to Forbes, the IAP contract to process your and my income tax returns has been delayed in order to complete "needed background checks, the Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday."
Sheesh, I would hope they would do background checks on the people who handle this vital information. And what has taken IAP so long to figure this out?
I don't know for sure, but I would bet that the IRS employees who process tax forms are required to pass background checks before starting work. So what made IAP or the IRS think they didn't need them for private contractor employees doing this work?
Did they think that the magic of the market meant that a private contractor's employees would be fully upright and honest and never think about making a buck by using our private information. Perhaps they did. As I reported a couple weeks ago, that's what Cong. Thomas Reynolds (R-NY) thinks.