IRS Is No Place for Software Test

Just how ancient, relatively speaking, is the Internal Revenue Service’s computer system? Well, the consumer can now buy computers powered by chips with 7.5 million transistors. The first microprocessor, developed by Intel Corp. in 1971, had just 2,300 transistors. The main computer of the IRS has parts from the 1960s, and the main body of the IRS’ tax software is so old that few programmers understand it.

These are some of the reasons why the hair-pulling stories of IRS errors continue. The latest: 90,000 Americans who correctly paid taxes for their household employees were ordered to file a tax form that actually is no longer necessary and were told to be prepared to pay up, with interest. Mind you, this mistake comes after the expenditure of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to update the IRS system.

The problem was reported to be in a modern software “patch” that failed to tell the old software that the old tax form was no longer necessary. The lesson is that the federal government should understand that the science of software, in practice, is far from exact and that taxpayers should not be at the mercy of any software before all the glitches have been ironed out. By one estimate, 31.1% of all software projects are canceled before completion. Only 16% of company software development projects nationwide come in on time and on budget, and most are unable to perform as promised.

The phrase “it should work” ought to be stricken within the IRS and replaced with this: If the new wrinkle isn’t tried, tested and retested, taxpayers will not be subjected to it, period.