An Analysis of IRS' Proposed Tax Administration System: Lessons for the Future

The Tax Administration System (TAS) was proposed to meet the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) information needs through extensive use of interactive on-line processing and decentralization of the tax account master files. Because of uncertainties relating to costs and benefits of the system and concerns about privacy, plans for TAS were discontinued and, instead, funds are being sought to upgrade the current system. Observations developed during a review of TAS may be useful in evaluating requests for future computer systems.