The Internal Revenue Service generally recovers computers from departing employees, according to a recent report – but that might just be luck.
The report, from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, was based on an audit conducted to determine whether IRS management implemented policies and procedures designed to provide reasonable assurance that laptop computers are returned when employees leave from the IRS.
The audit looked at a random sample of the more than 4,100 employees who left the IRS in Fiscal Year 2014, and found that all the laptop computers from the sample were returned to the service, but the process designed to make sure of that either didn’t function as intended or wasn’t followed.
Among other thing, separation records for laptop recovery were inaccurate for more than 850 (21 percent) of the leaving employees. Reconciling different inventory records within the IRS was also problematic.
TIGTA recommended updated guidance, more training, and new procedures to reconcile the service’s different records. IRS management agreed with the recommendations.
