Tax day 2017 was delayed one day due to a hardware failure in a system supporting the oldest IT system in the U.S. federal government. (rb- I wrote about the almost 60 years old system here.) Nextgov reports that 18-month-old hardware supporting the Internal Revenue Service’s Individual Master File experienced a caching issue causing the system to fail.
The failure disrupted almost all other IRS systems and services because those systems ingest data from the Individual Master File. When those systems—such as Direct Pay and the structured payments portal—called to the Individual Master File mainframe and got no response, they too failed.
Dave Powner, GAO’s director of IT management issues, told Nextgov, “This was our biggest fear about one of these mission-critical systems crashing. Fortunately, it wasn’t down for a long period of time, so in that way, we dodged a bullet.”
The crash delayed the submission of some 14 million tax forms. It could be several years before the Individual Master File is fully modernized and rid of 1960’s-era technology. The article speculates that the update timeline could slip because the IRS says it needs to hire at least 50 more employees—while backfilling any attrition—plus an extra $85 million per year in annual non-labor funding over the next five years. Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget request called for a $239 million reduction in funding for the IRS, which has faced many cuts in recent years.
The author explains that the Individual Master File has data from 1 billion taxpayer accounts dating back several decades and is the chief IRS application responsible for receiving 100 million Americans’ individual taxpayer data and dispensing refunds. IRS first attempted to replace the system with a modernized Customer Account Data Engine, but that effort was canceled in 2009. A delivery date for CADE 2, the IRS’ subsequent modernization effort, has slipped several years even as contractors working on the project have earned as much as $290 million.
GAO identified the Individual Master File as the oldest technology system still working in government in 2016.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.