GAO Finds 60 Deficiencies in IRS's Internal Controls

The Government Accountability Office today released Improvements Are Needed to Enhance the Internal Revenue Service's Internal Controls (GAO-13-420R):

During its audit of the IRS fiscal year 2012 financial statements, GAO identified one new internal control deficiency that contributed to IRS's continuing material weakness in internal control over unpaid tax assessments as of September 30, 2012. Specifically, IRS's controls over its process for estimating the balances of federal taxes receivable and other unpaid tax assessments were not effectively implemented to ensure the proper accounting classification and dollar amounts. In addition, GAO identified the following six less significant, new internal control deficiencies as of September 30, 2012. ...

Further, GAO's work showed that as of September 30, 2012, IRS had completed corrective action on 23 of the 69 recommendations from GAO's prior financial audits and other financial management-related work that remained open at the beginning of the fiscal year 2012 financial audit. As a result, IRS currently has 60 recommendations that need to be addressed, which consist of the previous 46 open recommendations as well as 14 new recommendations GAO is making in this report.