Open Recommendations

The Chief Information Officer should work with the Treasury Department to ensure that privileged Enterprise Data Platform user accounts are fully integrated with the PUMAS.

The Chief Information Officer should ensure that the responsible unit with the authority to remove Enterprise Data Platform user access is timely notified when appropriate e.g., entitlements are changed or accounts are inactive.

The Chief Information Officer should coordinate with the Treasury Department to resolve the infrastructure issue between IRS and Treasury networks and ensure that systemic processes are incorporated into the platform user account management process once the infrastructure limitations are resolved.

The Chief Information Officer should establish a corrective action plan or an RBD to address the lack of automated provisioning of user accounts.

Establish policies and implement procedures that provide specific guidance to program managers for the identification of scientific information products that are influential. These procedures shall include a process for determining whether a scientific information product is a principal basis for a decision by a federal decision maker.

Train appropriate employees on the established policies and implement procedures for the identification of scientific information products that are influential.

Based on the lack of evidence that such an assessment was previously performed, perform an analysis on rulemakings conducted after the issuance of OMB’s M-19-15 and determine if a scientific assessment was the principal basis for a decision by a federal decision maker.

Based on the results of the analysis performed for recommendation 3, perform appropriate administrative corrective actions, if necessary.

Perform a risk assessment that covers compliance with the Information Quality Act.

Review account access permission levels in the agency clearance workflow so that only users with a valid business purpose have appropriate access.

Establish policies and procedures for monitoring activities of the agency clearance workflow, to include the review of master data, access authorizations, and system access.

Establish policies and procedures for monitoring activities for compliance with both OMB and agency-specific policies for performing pre-dissemination review of scientific information.

Revise policies and procedures to track and maintain supporting documentation to ensure expenditures are adequately supported prior to reporting financial information to ARC.

Work with ARC to resolve the questioned costs totaling $44,989 for unsupported ARC funded Contractual and Other cost.

Work with ARC to resolve the questioned costs totaling $15,000 for unsupported non-ARC matching Contractual cost.

Revise policies and procedures for financial reporting to ensure costs incurred under a federal award are tracked within the GL, regularly reconciled against previously reported amounts and the approved budget, and reviewed prior to submission.

Work with ARC to resolve the questioned costs of $3,857 for non-ARC Matching cost share.

Revise policies and procedures to ensure the timely preparation and submission of financial and progress reports in accordance with the Uniform Guidance and ARC grant agreement requirements.

Develop formal subrecipient agreement procedures to ensure that all subrecipient agreements are reviewed for completeness and include all required elements in accordance with 2 CFR 200.332 prior to execution.

Develop standardized subrecipient agreement templates that incorporate all required Uniform Guidance data elements, including Federal award identification, required disclosures, access to records provisions, and subaward closeout requirements.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should review procedures and system programming specific to tax compliance to ensure that initial and continuous suitability reviews function as intended.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should Identify individuals with either an incomplete or ineligible citizenship
status and ensure that follow-up to verify their status has been completed.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should review programming specific to citizenship verification and consider
including this check in continuous suitability reviews.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should continue to identify and request that participants who are subject to fingerprinting requirements, and are not under continuous monitoring, submit their fingerprints and are enrolled in the FBI’s Rap Back Service.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should establish a systemic method of identifying IRS employees during initial and continuous suitability checks.