The Internal Revenue Service has a big problem with an old-fashioned technology.
A report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reveals "significant deficiencies" in how the IRS safeguards, accounts for and physically stores its microfilm backup cartridges.
TIGTA investigated the current three Tax Processing Centers (in Austin, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; and Ogden, Utah) that house microfilm backup cartridges and found that required annual inventories hadn't been performed.
"In fact, management could not provide a time frame of when the last required annual inventory was conducted," TIGTA added in the recent
News outlets said the improper storage could affect millions of tax records dating back more than a decade.
Among TIGTA's findings:
- Inventory controls include no reconciliation of the microfilm backup cartridges as being sent from closed Tax Processing Centers to what was physically shipped and received.
- Microfilm stored at the Ogden Tax Processing Center isn't safeguarded to limit access to the information; cartridges are stored on open shelving in the middle of a building accessible by many personnel and the shelving isn't within eyesight of the IRS personnel responsible for overseeing microfilm activities.
- Fifteen large pallets containing microfilm cartridges required to be sent to the Federal Records Center have been stored at the IRS's National Distribution Center since 2018.
- Microfilm cartridges stored at all three Tax Processing Centers exceed the 30-year storage requirement.
TIGTA made 13 recommendations in this report, including conducting a detailed inventory of all microfilm cartridges on hand, properly maintaining request logs and securing microfilm cartridges stored at the Ogden Tax Processing Center.
"The IRS should have the microfilm stored at the National Distribution Center re-boxed and shipped to the Federal Records Center, and dispose of all individual microfilm cartridges in storage with a processing year beyond 30 years," the report added.
The IRS agreed with 11 of the recommendations and disagreed with two, saying that employee access to the building at the Ogden Tax Processing Center is already limited and that microfilm storage is environmentally correct, including lighting, acid control, temperature and humidity.
