IRS's Criminal Investigation Division Face Difficulties Maintaining Control Over Investigative Equipment

IRS's Criminal Investigation (CI) Division continues to face difficulties in maintaining proper control over its investigative equipment, according to a recently released audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). (Audit Report No. 2011-30-008) The division must account for some 44,000 pieces of investigative equipment valued at $126 million. While acknowledging that the CI Division has made some progress to address this ongoing problem, TIGTA criticized the division for not taking or fully implementing “all agreed to actions from our prior report.” Auditors found that “CI Division personnel did not always properly conduct the annual physical verifications, maintain complete documentation to support investigative equipment disposal transactions, and did not review user permissions for its management information system.” The audit also noted that physical security controls over CI Division investigative equipment must be bolstered ““to reduce the risk of unauthorized access.” The audit is located at http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2011reports/201130008fr.pdf.