Recommendation: The IRS Commissioner should direct the appropriate IRS officials to determine the reason(s) why staff did not always comply with IRS's established policies and procedures related to initiating, monitoring, and reviewing the monitoring of manual refunds and, based on this determination, establish a process to better enforce compliance with these requirements.

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open

Comments: During fiscal year 2019, we identified instances where staff did not comply with IRS's policies and procedures related to monitoring and reviewing the monitoring of manual refunds. IRS officials stated that the Wage and Investment (W&I) organization determined that a fully automated process to perform monitoring of manual refunds is the optimal solution to address, at an enterprise level, deficiencies associated with reliance on employees to monitor refunds in process and take appropriate action when potential duplicate or erroneous refund conditions are encountered. In addition, IRS officials indicated that the W&I organization will develop business requirements and request programming through the Unified Work Request process; however, limited resources and competing priorities prevent the identification of an implementation date. As a result, IRS will place this recommendation on hold until an implementation date is known.

Recommendation: The IRS Commissioner should direct the appropriate IRS officials to identify the cause of and implement a solution for dealing with the periodic backlogs of ICO inventory that is hampering the performance of quality reviews.

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open

Comments: During fiscal year 2019, the Wage and Investment (W&I) organization determined that periodic backlogs of Input Correction Operation (ICO) inventory were caused by a combination of factors, such as systemic issues, fluctuations in projected filings, and hiring challenges. IRS officials stated that the W&I organization has also identified and implemented several strategies to address ICO backlogs and mitigate the impact on the quality review program, including hiring more staff in ICO functions, using seasonal employees, cross-training, overtime, transferring of work, and updating the Internal Revenue Manual. Since IRS provided us with this information near the end of our fiscal year 2019 audit in September 2019, we will evaluate IRS's actions to address this recommendation during our fiscal year 2020 audit.

Recommendation: The IRS Commissioner should direct the appropriate officials to establish and implement monitoring procedures designed to reasonably assure that the key detailed information for tangible capitalized P&E is properly recorded and updated in the KISAM system.

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open

Comments: IRS established the Asset Management Program Monitoring and Review procedure, effective October 1, 2016, for performing quarterly sample reviews of Information Technology (IT) assets in the Knowledge, Incident/Problem, Service Asset Management (KISAM) system. In September 2017, IRS also revised the Internal Revenue Manual to require Facilities Management and Security Services territory managers or section chiefs to review KISAM key data elements for non-IT assets to verify that they are correct and updated. However, during our fiscal year 2018 floor-to-book inventory testing, we identified exceptions where (1) a key detailed information element (e.g., building code) for property and equipment (P&E) assets was not properly recorded in KISAM and (2) P&E assets found on the floor did not have asset records in KISAM. We will conduct inventory testing and follow-up to determine the status of this issue during our audit of IRS's fiscal year 2020 financial statements.

Recommendation: To improve DOD's ability to oversee its inventory of leased real property, aimed at improving the accuracy and completeness of data in RPAD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army to enforce DOD's Real Property Inventory (RPI) Reporting Guidance, which states that for multiple assets associated with a single lease, the military departments and WHS must provide a breakout of the annual rent plus other costs for each asset on the same lease, to avoid overstating costs associated with such leases.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with GAO's March 2016 recommendation to enforce DOD's Real Property Inventory (RPI) Reporting Guidance to break out the annual rent plus other costs for each asset on the same lease to avoid overstating the costs associated with such leases. In July 2019, DOD provided GAO a copy of its annual guidance for end of year submission of its real property inventory, including notes and timeline for submission. DOD stated in its Corrective Action Plan that this annual guidance provided the requirements for proper submission of data to meet the issues identified in this recommendation. However, the documentation provided is generic language and does not provide any detailed information to support closure of this recommendation. In August 2020, we requested documentation that shows that the DOD has reiterated its RPI Reporting Guidance and that military departments and WHS have made the needed adjustments in the reporting of their leased facilities to show a breakout of the annual rent plus other costs for each asset on the same lease. We will continue to monitor this area and update this if DOD provides information showing that DOD has reiterated its RPI Reporting Guidance and that military departments and WHS have adjusted the reporting of their leased facilities to show a breakout of the annual rent plus other costs for each asset on the same lease. .

Recommendation: To improve DOD's ability to ensure that its leased facilities are secure, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense (Intelligence) to request reports from the Federal Protective Service for all leased facilities on a periodic basis as determined necessary for oversight. At a minimum, the Under Secretary should request (1) the results of the assessments, (2) the date on which the last assessment was completed for each facility and the date for which the next scheduled assessment is planned, and (3) information on whether these dates meet the time frames established by Interagency Security Committee standards.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD concurred with GAO's March 2016 recommendation. In its July 2019 Corrective Action Plan, DOD stated that it had coordinated with the Federal Protective Service (FPS) to obtain data pertaining to the 677 DOD facilities across 539 total locations (i.e., some locations have multiple tenants, hence more facilities than locations) for which FPS provides physical security. DOD stated that the data provided to them by FPS shows that, as of July 2018, 98 percent of DOD leased facilities met the established time frame for completing assessments and remaining 2 percent (15 of the 677 facilities) had out-of-date assessments. In January 2020, DOD provided GAO with the raw data it received from the Federal Protective Service that DOD said supported these assertions. While this data included the last and next facility assessment dates for each facility, along with several other variables, it did not include sufficient information for us to replicate DOD's analysis that 98 percent of assessments were completed in the 3 to 5 year period. We will continue to monitor this area and will update if DOD provides information that more fully explains DOD's analysis.

Recommendation: To improve DOD's ability to oversee its inventory of leased real property, aimed at improving the accuracy and completeness of data in RPAD, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Energy, Installations and Environment) to modify the office's Real Property Information Model to include a data element to capture the square footage for each lease of space in a single building and also make a corresponding change to its Real Property Inventory (RPI) Reporting Guidance to require that the square footage for each individual lease be reported when multiple leases exist for a single building, to avoid overstating the total square footage assigned to each lease in RPAD.

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: DOD did not concur with GAO's March 2016 recommendation to capture the total square footage assigned to each individual lease when multiple leases exist for a single building and make a corresponding change to its guidance to avoid overstating the total square footage assigned to each lease in RPAD. In its comments, DOD stated that it agreed that the issue we identified existed regarding multiple leases that are assigned the same building (leases managed by WHS in the National Capital Region), but that DOD did not agree with GAO's recommended solution to this issue. DOD stated that it believed that the underlying cause for overstating the total square footage for these records in RPAD was a data aggregation issue. DOD stated that its Data Analytics and Integration Support (DAIS) platform that was in the process of being developed would include the capability to capture square footage for multiple leases in a single asset. GAO is not wedded to a particular solution, only that the issue be resolved to improve the accuracy and completeness of the data. As of August 2020, DAIS is fully operational. We will continue to monitor this area and will update if DOD provides information to support that DIAS includes the total square footage assigned to individual leases when multiple leases are assigned to the same building.