25.29.1. Standard Tax Compliance Checks for Suitability and Monitoring

(1) The One Tax Compliance initiative was developed to ensure consistency in performing tax compliance checks for individuals when making suitability determinations for hiring or monitoring tax compliance of employees and contractors within the IRS. To provide uniformity, suitability and monitoring tax compliance checks transitioned to utilize the enterprise Tax Compliance Check Service (TCCS), replacing the use of various legacy tools and reducing the need for manual account research.

(2) The TCCS is an enterprise common service developed to perform automated suitability and monitoring tax checks across the IRS. The TCCS uses automated business rules to lookup taxpayer accounts and identify the tax compliance status.

(3) This IRM outlines the criteria used and the results obtained through the automated TCCS service, in performing a tax compliance check for suitability and monitoring.

(4) To be fully compliant with federal tax filing and payment obligations, an individual must accurately and timely file, pay on time and have no outstanding tax liability.

(1) Public Laws:

1. Public Law 105-206, IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, Section 1203, Termination of Employment for Misconduct at: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-105publ206

2. Public Law 116-93, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, Section 108, at: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-116publ93

(2) Regulation: Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 2635, Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, Subpart A, General Provisions, Section 2635.101, Basic obligation of public service at:5 CFR 2635

(1) HCO is responsible for the Servicewide policy, Standard Tax Compliance Checks for Suitability and Monitoring for Federal Applicants, Employees, and Contractors.

(2) As owner of the TCCS enterprise service, PGLD is responsible for ensuring the automated evaluative rules used in TCCS align with the standard tax check criteria for suitability and monitoring.

(3) Applications Development, within IT, maintains the Tax Check Program (TCP) and its applications.

(4) Business units that process tax compliance checks used for suitability determinations and monitoring tax compliance are responsible for incorporating TCCS into their procedures and using the results when making determinations of suitability or monitoring compliance.

(1) The TCCS Metrics Service interface captures statistics for all TCCS data requests.

(2) Statistics on TCCS data requests are captured via Business Objects Enterprise (BOE). The BOE reports are used to quantify the level of tax compliance for all successful data calls and are segmented by requesting business unit.

(1) TCCS Metrics Service Log

(2) Federal Information Security Management Act

(3) Technology Contingency Plan

(1) IRM 6.332.2.3, Federal Tax Compliance Check

(2) IRM 6.451.1.23.3, Misconduct Screenings and Tax Compliance

(3) IRM 6.731.1.1, Appointments Subject to Investigation

(4) IRM 10.23.2, Personnel Security, Contractor Investigations

(5) IRM 10.23.3, Personnel Security, Suitability for Employment and Personnel Security Operations

(6) Policy Statement 25-3, Standard Tax Compliance Checks for Suitability and Monitoring for Federal Applicants, Employees, and Contractors, at: https://irm.web.irs.gov/Part1/Chapter2/Section1/IRM1.2.1.aspx#1.2.1.16.2

(1) Suitability Determination - Suitability reflects the standards required for employment with the government in general, and particularly the IRS, with reference to a person’s character, reputation, and overall fitness.

(2) Monitoring -The process of screening employees and contractor employees to ensure continued tax compliance.

(3) Tax Check Program (TCP) - The TCP is used by IT to support multiple IRS program owners and provides data to their business systems. The applications under TCP include the TCCS, the Tax Check Application, and the Employee Tax Compliance TCCS Interface.

(4) Tax Compliance Check Service (TCCS) - The TCCS automates the business rules to perform multi-year tax account research, retrieve tax delinquency data and filing and payment of required taxes for individual taxpayers.

(5) Compliant - Tax compliance is the accurate and timely filing of all required tax returns and the timely payment of all tax liabilities. A compliant result is determined when tax records reflect there is no record of an overdue tax return or unpaid tax debt.

(6) Compliance Issue - A compliance issue result reflects that one or more of the following conditions in any of the report sections exist:

1. A history of late filing,

2. A history of late paid tax debt, or

3. The taxpayer is resolving an outstanding liability through an administrative or judicial proceeding, which allows due process for the individual to settle the tax matter.

(7) Non-Compliant - A non-compliant result indicates that a required tax return is not on file, return was filed inaccurately, or there are unresolved tax liabilities. An overall non-compliant result indicates that one or more of the sectional results were identified as non-compliant.