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By SecureWorld News Team
Tue | Mar 20, 2018 | 10:12 AM PDT

IRS-old-tax-system.pngIt was big news in 1960, when the Internal Revenue Service announced something in its annual report: technology advancement finally made it possible to automate crunching America's taxes.

And despite an annual IT budget of $2.7 billion today, the IRS is still using a key part of that original system, known as the "Business Master File."

Are you doing the math here? The system and its programming language are almost 60 years old, and according to the GAO, that would make it the oldest IT system in the U.S. government.

NextGov reported on this story:

"To IRS' credit, it keeps these old systems running during the file season," Dave Powner, GAO's director of IT management issues, said before the House Committee on Ways and Means in October. “But relying on these antiquated systems for our nation’s primary source of revenue is highly risky, meaning the chance of having a failure during the filing season is continually increasing.

And it's not just about taking money in. The system is critical in determining taxpayer refunds, which pumps billions into the economy each year.

Where is billions in IT budget going at IRS?

Despite the increasing risk of failure and the shrinking pool of IT experts who know the system's Assembly code, the IRS modernization effort has been been pushed back to 2022. 

So where is all the money going? Well, a former IRS director says budget cuts have hurt efforts, and taxpayer identity theft suddenly become a huge spending priority.

"Victims of identity theft dropped by two-thirds, after years of barely being able to hold our own,” he said. “It was the appropriate decision to protect accounts against identity theft, but it has meant that other critical information technology programs have gone more slowly," says former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

You have to wonder about cybersecurity on the "Business Master File system," don't you?

Then again, maybe it is so old that today's hackers wouldn't know how to navigate it. 

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