Ryan wants IRS to immediately adopt security recommendations

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) wants the Internal Revenue Service to immediately start working to adopt a watchdog’s recommendations to improve the security of taxpayer information.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report earlier this week that recommended 43 actions the IRS can take to fix weaknesses in security controls.

Congressional Republicans “will continue to exercise vigorous oversight to help ensure the IRS adopts all 43 GAO recommendations,” Ryan’s office said Wednesday in a blog post on the Speaker’s website.

“Hardworking taxpayers need assurances that the IRS will do everything possible to protect their personal information — and we are committed to giving Americans that peace of mind,” Ryan’s office said.

The GAO found that while the IRS made progress last year in securing its systems that process taxpayer and financial information, sensitive information is still vulnerable to being accessed by those with malicious intentions. The IRS hasn’t always implemented proper controls for authenticating users, appropriately restricted access to servers and made sure that certain sensitive data was encrypted, according to the GAO report.

In a letter to GAO, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said his agency will provide a “detailed corrective action plan” addressing the recommendations in a letter to Congress.

The IRS agrees with GAO’s recommendations. However, it “will review them to ensure that our actions include sustainable fixes that implement appropriate security controls balanced against information technology and human capital resource limitations,” Koskinen said.

Ryan’s office said that the IRS’s response to the report involves “the usual excuses and evasions.”

The IRS needs to “show good faith and demonstrate a commitment to change its culture of impunity,” Ryan’s office said.