TIGTA: IRS May Be Violating Copyright Law on 89% of its Software

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration yesterday released Desktop and Laptop Software License Management Is Not Being Adequately Performed (2013-20-025):

The IRS is not adequately performing software license management and is not adhering to Federal requirements and recommended industry best practices. The IRS does not have enterprisewide or local policies, procedures, and requirements for software license management. The User and Network Services organization was unable to provide us with essential licensing records for properly managing licenses on 24 of 27 software products reviewed during this audit. TIGTA also found that the IRS does not have specialized software license tools designed to be the repository for software and software license deployment. These tools should be used to discover, track, manage, and detect inactive usage of software licenses. Finally, the IRS does not have an accurate inventory of software and related licenses that contains licensing models applicable to each software product which links data on the licenses purchased and deployed with the purchase costs, procurement information, and monitoring and usage data.

• Accounting Today, IRS Needs to Manage Software Licenses Better
• Fox News, New Audit Finds IRS Can’t Keep Track of its Own Software
• TorrentFreak, The IRS Is Running Pirate Software
• Washington Times, IRS May be Breaking Software Copyright Laws, Audit Finds