Small firms to get slice of IRS Prime

IRS networking notice

The Internal Revenue Service is offering small businesses a chance to get a piece of the action on the IRS modernization contract.

The agency's small-business program office is hosting a networking session Feb. 7 and Feb. 8 to enable small businesses to meet the IRS Prime project's contractor and its alliance partners.

Officials from small information technology businesses with less than $18 million in revenue and fewer than 500 employees may attend the event.

Representatives from Computer Sciences Corp., the main contractor on the project, also will attend, along with staff from its partners — IBM Corp., Unisys Corp., Science Applications International Corp., Logicon Inc., Avaya Inc. and KPMG Consulting Inc.

A CSC briefing paper said the goal of the project is to subcontract 41 percent of the work to small businesses, including 5 percent to woman-owned and small disadvantaged businesses, and 1 percent to service-disabled veterans and small businesses within the Historically Underutilized Business Zone program.

"CSC and its Prime Alliance partners are currently exceeding the goals for small business participation in IRS business systems modernization," a CSC spokesman said. "We look forward to hearing from additional small businesses [that] would like to participate in rebuilding America's tax system to bring top-quality service to America's taxpayers."

More than 200 people have registered for the sessions, according to Jodie Paustian, small-business specialist for the IRS.

Paustian said the program is a good way to bring small contractors together with the prime contractor. The Treasury Department hosts a similar outreach twice a year for all of its prime contractors.