Bush budget would cut IRS systems modernization

The Internal Revenue Service’s Business Systems Modernization program wouldn't get much more money under President Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget for the Treasury Department. The program would receive a 4.8 percent increase in information technology spending, to $3.07 billion. Treasury’s projected overall budget for 2009 would be $12.5 billion, 3.8 percent higher than this year’s $12 billion. The IRS would receive $11.4 billion, an increase of 4.3 percent over this year’s budget, to expand enforcement activities and continue improvements in taxpayer services. However, spending for the business systems program would be cut 16.6 percent to $222.6 million, while taxpayer services would remain steady at $2.15 billion. Treasury would increase funding for IRS enforcement by 7.1 percent to $5.1 billion, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said while announcing his department’s budget on Feb. 4. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which manages the private sector’s Bank Secrecy Act data to combat money laundering and financing of terrorist activities, would receive $5.5 million more, or 6.4 percent, going to $91.3 million compared with this year. FinCEN plans to spend $14 million to update its BSA information management and analysis system for more timely reporting in its relationship with law enforcement agencies. Of all IT spending, development and modernization would decrease to $579.6 million, but increased for operations to $2.5 billion. Among the projects that would receive development funding, financial management would gain $28.6 million. That would include funding for Oracle business applications to integrate accounting, budgeting and reporting tasks across the department and the Internal Revenue Accounting Control System that is used to account for and reconcile money collected for taxes. Also under its financial mission, Treasury would use $14.8 million for deposit and data management for centralized transaction and deposit reporting in an enterprise architecture environment and $10 million for the Governmentwide Accounting and Reporting Modernization. The budget would apply $4.5 million for e-services for tax professionals. Treasury would boost IT funding for enforcement to $43.8 million, including $14 million for FinCEN to update its BSA information management and analysis and e-crimes environment for digital evidence. Treasury would spend $82.3 million for management initiatives, including $42.8 million for consolidated enterprise identity management under the Homeland Security Protection Directive 12 and $22.6 million for enterprise content management services. The budget request would provide $46.6 million for departmentwide enterprise architecture, integration and management Among Treasury’s IT proposals, the Domestic Finance’s Office of Debt Management would receive an additional $3 million to update its IT systems so accurate and timely reports can be made. The budget would provide $6 million to continue implementation of the departmentwide Enterprise Content Management System, $4 million to modernize the Treasury Secure Data Network, the classified communications system, and $5 million to strengthen Treasury’s IT security and its performance to meet the Federal Information Security Management Act.