RFI 2032H8-24-N-00007.docx

Section: Sources Sought Notice Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services

Office Address:

Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service (IRS) National Office Procurement (OS:A:P) 1111 Constitution Ave NW, C7-NCFB Washington, DC 20224-0002 Classification Code: R – Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services Solicitation Number: 2032H8-24-N-00007 NACIS Code: 541690 Contact:

· Kelvin Bogan, Contract Specialist, phone: 240-613-9353, email: Kelvin.Bogan@irs.gov.

INTRODUCTION:

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes – it does not constitute a Request for Quotation (RFQ) or a promise to issue an RFQ in the future. This request for information does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, the IRS is not seeking proposals at this time and will not accept unsolicited proposals. Responders are advised that the U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party’s expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFQ, if any is issued.

The purpose of this RFI is to gather market research, confirm the Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE), implementation timeline, and available venders.

Description This is a Request for Information (RFI) and product demonstration only. This is not a Request for Proposal and is not a Government commitment to issue a solicitation or award a contract. Responses to this request do not serve as proposals, bids, or offers that the Government might accept as a binding contract. Responses will assist the Government in its market research to determine whether, according to applicable law, to set-aside, restrict competition, or solicit offers from all responsible sources. For the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to assess set-asides, interested parties should identify their company as one of the following: small business, 8(a), HUBZone small business, small disadvantaged business, woman-owned business, veteran-owned small business, service disabled veteran-owned small business, or large business.

The IRS Office of the Chief Procurement Officer appreciates the importance of productive relationships with our industry partners, relationships that help the Office accomplish its mission. The cornerstone of this alliance rests in transparency and opportunities for open communication.

This RFI is the first request for information or tools available in the marketplace. The IRS requests responses to this RFI be provided no later than 12:00 P.M. EST on June 7, 2024 by an e-mail (with the subject line “The Statistics of Income (SOI) Division, Merthodogy and Disclosure Avoidance Consulting Services RFI Response”) to the procurement email inbox Kelvin.Bogan@irs.gov or through e-Buy. Although there are no specific restrictions for formatting, please keep all responses to fifteen pages or less, adhere to general formatting principles, and ensure that responses are legible. Responders should be aware that there is no guarantee the IRS will have funding or issue a solicitation generated from this RFI, nor will the IRS be responsible for reimbursing a vendor’s costs in responding to this RFI. Also list any contract number that your company have worked on or with the IRS in last 10 years on back page of your capability reporting.

Background on the IRS Mission, Definitions, and Tax Processes The IRS collects the revenue to fund the government and administers the nation’s tax laws. The IRS receives revenue from a variety of taxes, including individual and business income, estate and gift, employment, and excise taxes. The IRS also routinely interacts with small and large businesses, partnerships, domestic and foreign financial institutions, governmental organizations (including Federal, state, and foreign entities), Indian Tribal governments, and tax-exempt entities (such as charitable organizations, foundations, universities, and trusts), as well as a wide spectrum of intermediaries and professionals who support effective tax administration, including payment and payroll service providers, enrolled agents, Certified Public Accountants, and return preparers. The IRS employs over 75,000 employees in nearly 500 locations.

In recent years the IRS has made several changes to modernize and improve tax processing systems, to increase electronic filing and payment options, and to expand services on IRS.gov for taxpayers and tax professionals. As the needs of taxpayers, the tax community, and the nation continue to rapidly evolve, the IRS needs to consider modern technological tools to conduct business and complete the research necessary to administer effective tax compliance. The IRS seeks to modernize its online research tools for effective administration of tax laws. This modernization will benefit both the IRS and the public. The IRS recognizes it must resolve cases in the most expeditious way possible, so it can meet the needs of taxpayers, the tax community, and its employees in an efficient and effective manner.

Proposed Future Course

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS)

Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income (SOI) Division, Methodology and Disclosure Avoidance Consulting Services Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Contract

1. PURPOSE AND BACKGROUND

The mission of the Statistics of Income (SOI) Division is to collect, analyze, and disseminate information on federal taxation for the Office of Tax Analysis, Congressional Committees, the Internal Revenue Service in its administration of the tax laws, other organizations engaged in economic and financial analysis, and for the general-public. The data are derived from Federal tax forms for economic and financial research, development of Federal tax policy, and revenue estimation. Statistics of Income is divided into four branches: Individual & Tax-Exempt, Corporations, Partnerships, & International, Information Management & Dissemination and Statistical Services.

The Individual & Tax-Exempt, Corporations, and Partnerships & International branches are subject matter based and collectively produce statistical data on individual tax returns, business tax returns (including multi-national corporations and foreign-owned corporations), foundations, charitable trusts, and other tax-exempt organizations. The other two Branches are responsible for producing statistical data, public dissemination of Federal tax statistics, managing SOI systems and database administration for the SOI National Office LAN, SOI Intranet, and provide technical consulting in areas such as sample design and performance metrics.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Statistics of Income Division (SOI) requires the technical support of a contractor to conduct reviews of analytical studies, including but not limited to methodological review including best practices, disclosure avoidance, applying differential privacy and similar methodologies to existing datasets, and the creation of new datasets.

The contractor shall be familiar with relevant policy issues and developmental activities throughout the Government and related research conducted in the private sector. Due to continuing changes in priorities within the Government and the impossibility of anticipating the avenues for investigation, which will emerge during research, all the specific tasks to be performed by the Contractor cannot be set forth at the outset.

2. SCOPE OF WORK

Task Orders will be issued to accomplish the work being requested under the general scope of work. These projects will be initiated as needed with specific requirements for appropriate tasks and deliverables. Specific deliverables will be defined on a task order basis.

3. PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS

Contractor support is required to address issues within the following major functional areas:

3.1 Disclosure Avoidance

A major statistical issue is disclosure avoidance in tabular material as well as in relation to public-use micro data files. The IRS uses a series of rules based on the type of tax return study. These rules are outlined in IRS Publication 1075, Tax Information Security Guidelines for Federal, State and Local Agencies. With the increased information available on the internet/public domain (particularly for businesses) the IRS needs to review and improve its current disclosure procedures. Alternative methods of disclosure avoidance will be required to protect the confidentiality of taxpayers in all publicly released data.

Given the continuing evolution of computer power and statistical matching software and the overall increase in data availability in the public domain, SOI is faced with the need to constantly reevaluate its disclosure avoidance methodologies.

Therefore, the Contractor shall demonstrate its ability to:

· Understand and use statistical matching software, and

· Understand and use variance analysis software to measure the impact of alternative disclosure avoidance methodologies.

· Utilize practical and scholarly knowledge of the creation and use of synthetic data sets for statistical disclosure control.

· Apply appropriate advance disclosure and avoidance methodology to relevant studies or projects.

3.5 Disclosure Limitation Methodology

· Apply statistical disclosure limitation methodology based on differentially private algorithms to support the production of a public dataset.

3.6 Training

· Develop in house expertise through training and coaching both in general disclosure limitation methodology as well as related to specific deliverables.

· Develop and conduct customized inhouse training opportunities related to disclosure methodologies.

· Provide training offerings that include standardized training programs and workshops as well as multimodal and modular training content, in addition to specialized and innovative training experiences such as cohort-based coaching, and project-based learning.

3.1 Disclosure Consulting Services

There are several categories of SOI sampling programs with similar and specific problems. Each task order may be general, or it may be applied to one specific program as follows:

A. Review of an existing SOI procedure or program, or a user’s procedure applied to SOI data. This may include evaluating the existing sample design, statistical methodologies, the statistical properties of the resulting product, and related technical advantages and disadvantages (cost, ease of use, etc.).

B. Review an existing SOI or SOI-related database.

C. Document, summarize, or describe an SOI procedure, problem, or database.

D. Propose and describe analysis of SOI data. This would include a discussion of any assumptions which must be made and the statistical model or experimental design which is being used. A diagram of the database(s) to be used, and computer package or statistical techniques that are needed should be outlined. If the analysis is to be carried out by SOI, these will be outlined in detail.

E. Perform an analysis to evaluate new or alternative procedures. Some examples: evaluate a new imputation procedure; compare alternative procedures for advance estimation based on incomplete data; compare alternative procedures for disclosure avoidance; predict the effects of alternative sample designs on cross-sectional and longitudinal estimates; compare alternative procedures for estimating behavior over time. Required data will be provided by SOI in order that a comparison with present methods can be evaluated.

F. Evaluate and document a completed data analysis. This should include, at least, a description of the database, the assumption made, the outcome, and the conclusions that can be drawn from this analysis.

G. Develop a new or alternative procedure to be implemented by SOI. This could be in response to a change in users' priorities or to improve the current methodology. Such a procedure must be compatible with current processing and computing capabilities. The documentation should include:

a. discussion of the pertinent statistical issues and of the statistical properties of the new or alternative procedure.

b. any relevant references or source material supporting this new or alternative procedure.

c. technical description of the steps in the procedure.

d. discussion of technical or computing properties (cost, ease of use, etc.);

Each task order may be general, or it may be applied to one specific program as follows:

A. Review of an existing SOI procedure or program, or a user’s procedure applied to SOI data. This may include evaluating the existing sample design, statistical methodologies, the statistical properties of the resulting product, and related technical advantages and disadvantages (cost, ease of use, etc.).

C. Document, summarize, or describe an SOI procedure, problem, or database.

E. Perform an analysis to evaluate new or alternative procedures. Some examples: evaluate a new imputation procedure; compare alternative procedures for advance estimation based on incomplete data; compare alternative procedures for disclosure avoidance; predict the effects of alternative sample designs on cross-sectional and longitudinal estimates; compare alternative procedures for estimating behavior over time. Required data will be provided by SOI in order that a comparison with present methods can be evaluated.

F. Evaluate and document a completed data analysis. This should include, at least, a description of the database, the assumption made, the outcome, and the conclusions that can be drawn from this analysis.

G. Develop a new or alternative procedure to be implemented by SOI. This could be in response to a change in users' priorities or to improve the current methodology. Such a procedure must be compatible with current processing and computing capabilities. The documentation should include:

H. Report writing or documentation other than specified in the above items.

Investigation or research regarding statistical issues associated with SOI procedures, where the key issues include incomplete data problems, analysis using complex sample data, and cross- sectional vs. longitudinal estimation and analysis. This type of study could involve data simulations as well as analysis using SOI data.

3.2 Statistical Analysis and Analytical Studies

The Contractor shall provide statistical and analytical support to SOI with particular emphasis on but not limited to:

· disclosure avoidance

· creation of synthetic data

· differential privacy and other disclosure avoidance techniques.

3.3 Incomplete Data

The most relevant statistical issues surround the design and estimation methodologies used in SOI’s cross-sectional samples and disclosure concerns are:

· The potential to build the data collection method (paper vs. electronically- filed returns) into the sample design.

· The variables used in stratification may potentially be outdated.

· Selecting a Bernoulli sample does not produce a sample with a fixed sample size.

· Improved weighting methodologies have been developed, that can potentially be used to weight the SOI samples to account for missing returns, such as calibration weighting.

· The problem of estimation from a sample with missing returns, which is often caused by the creation of a preliminary or "advance sample" which is not necessarily representative of the final sample.

The contractor shall focus on finding analytical methods for improving upon the current sample design used by SOI; and offer targeted process improvement techniques and analyses where possible.

4. POST-AWARD CONFERENCE

4.1 Post-Award Conference

The contractor shall attend a post-award conference with the COR and the IRS personnel responsible for the statistical consulting services. The contractor shall be contacted by the Administering Contracting Officer to coordinate the post-award conference.

5. QUALITY CONTROL PLAN

The Contractor shall submit a Quality Control Plan in response to the Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan for each IDIQ Task Order within ten (10) business days of Task Order award. The Contractor shall maintain and utilize a quality control plan which correlates to the Performance Requirements Summary and Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan for each IDIQ Task Order and throughout the life of each respective task order. Each quality control plan must contain, at a minimum:

· A description of the inspection system to cover all services in the QASP. The description must include specifics as to the areas to be inspected on both a scheduled and unscheduled basis, frequency of inspection, and the title and organizational placement of the inspectors.

· A description of the methods used for identifying and preventing defects in the quality of service performed.

· A description of the records to be kept to document inspections and corrective or preventive actions taken.

The records must be kept and made available to the contracting officer, when requested, throughout the agreement performance period and for the period after each task order’s completion until final settlement of any claims under this agreement or any of its associated task orders.

5. TRAVEL and PER DIEM The Contractor may be required to travel in performance of task orders against this IDIQ. Allowable travel and per diem charges are governed by Pub. L. 99-234 and FAR Part 31, and the GSA Federal Travel Regulations. Travel in performance of task orders against this IDIQ will only be reimbursable to the extent that is authorized by the ordering agency. Local travel will not be reimbursed under this agreement or any of its associated task orders.

6. CONTRACTOR PERSONNEL

The successful completion of the project requires highly developed skills and demonstrated experience in the areas of management analysis and/or management consulting related to various aspects of tax administration. The contractor shall provide personnel with a broad range of experience and expertise in areas such as advanced disclosure avoidance, differential privacy, synthetic data, statistical analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

The Contractor is required to possess or obtain a background investigation in the performance of the contract. See the clause at IR1052.224-9000 for additional details.

7. REASSIGNMENT AND REPLACEMENT OF CONTRACTOR PERSONNEL

All Contractor personnel are expected to adhere to the IRS Rules of Conduct. The Government reserves the right to request that any Contractor personnel found to be in violation of the Rules of Conduct be replaced or reassigned. The Contracting Officer will give notice of such reassignment in writing. See clause at IR1052.215-9004 for additional details.

8. INSPECTION AND ACCEPTANCE

Inspection at the Government’s locations stated herein in accordance with FAR 52.212- 4(a) “Inspection and Acceptance.”

Specific Acceptance Criteria

The specific quality measures as set forth below will be applied to each deliverable received from the contractor under this contract. Any perceived conflict with the quality measures listed below should be immediately reported to the Contracting Officer.

Note: Work products should be provided in draft for review and discussion with the government and finalized on agreed upon timelines. The inventory of work products and program content supported should be documented in the contractor Monthly Status Report.

· Accuracy – Deliverables shall be accurate in presentation, technical content and specifications and adherence to accepted elements of style.

· Clarity – Deliverables shall be clear and concise. All diagrams shall be easy to understand and relevant to the supporting narrative.

· Specifications Validity – All deliverables must satisfy the requirements of the Government as specified herein.

· File Editing - All text and diagrammatic files shall be editable by the Government.

· Format – Deliverables shall be submitted electronically as defined in the PWS. Deliverables shall be produced using Microsoft Office 2000 Professional.

· Timeliness – Deliverables shall be submitted in accordance with the days identified in the chart above.

Rejection Procedures

Any deliverable that does not comply with the acceptance criteria outlined in Section 9, “Specific Acceptance Criteria” shall be considered rejected. The COR has 10 business days to inform the contractor that the deliverable is rejected, and the contractor has 5 business days to re-submit the deliverable for inspection and acceptance. The number of days allotted to the contractor for re-submission of deliverables maybe adjusted if agreed upon by both parties. This process will continue as required until acceptance has been issued by the COR.

9. SOURCES OF DATA AND ENVIRONMENT

· The SOI Division will provide all necessary data files.

· To maintain the security of IRS files, neither the contractor nor any subcontractor may release the results of these studies to anybody outside the SOI Division unless SOI grants prior written approval.

10. DELIVERABLES

Deliverables to be defined at the Task Order level.

11. ORDERING PROCESS

a. Upon identification of a requirement for services under the contract, the COR may discuss task or tasks with the contractor for subsequent preparation of a performance work statement (PWS). The Contracting Officer will send the PWS to the Contractor with a request for proposal (RFP). The contractor shall return the proposal to the Contracting Officer, as required, for evaluation and subsequent issuance of an order. The proposal will include the estimated hours, line-item price, estimated travel costs (if applicable), résumés (if applicable), delivery/performance schedule, and how each task will be performed.

b. All deliverables will be identified in individual IDIQ task orders.

c. IDIQ task orders will be firm-fixed price.

d. Each task order will reflect:

· The Performance Work Statement with scope, meetings, and deliverables, outlined as appropriate.

· Special reporting requirements, if applicable

· Period of Performance

· Applicable special provisions

· Firm-fixed or not-to-exceed total Travel price.

· Specific Invoicing instructions

e. Any authorized Contracting Officer with the IRS Office of Business Solutions Acquisitions (OBSA) acting within the scope of his or her warrant, may sign the task orders.

12. IDIQ LIMITATIONS

The Contractor shall not make expenditures nor incur obligations in the performance of this contract which exceed the ceiling price of the award, except at the Contractor's own risk.

13. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE

The anticipated period of performance for this Base plus 4 Option Years contract is as follows:

14. PLACE OF PERFORMANCE

Work will be performed at the Government’s facility located at 77 K Street, NE, Washington, D.C. or at an approved contractor facility. Work may also be performed via telework on an IRS-issued laptop. All work containing FTI will be completed on IRS-issued equipment. Normal hours of operation for support provided on Government site are typically between 7:30am and 5:30pm daily, Monday through Friday and do not include designated holidays.

15. SECURITY REQUIREMNTS

All contractors must pass a standard background investigation and be issued a contractor badge. Due to the nature of this job, the contractor will need to access Federal Tax Information (FTI), Taxpayer Return Information (TRI), Sensitive but Unclassified (SBU), and Personal Identifying Information (PII). All Access to FTI, TRI, SBU, and PII will be done on IRS issued laptops. The contractor must complete all assigned mandatory briefings timely.

To maintain the security if IRS data and files, neither the contractor nor the subcontractor may release any information to any individual outside the Statistics of Income Division without explicit written prior approval.

16. PROVIDE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The contractor shall provide project management support. This includes the management and oversight of all activities performed by contractor personnel, including subcontractors, to satisfy the requirements identified in this Performance Work Statement (PWS).

17. COORDINATE A PROJECT KICK-OFF MEETING

The contractor shall schedule, coordinate, and host a Project Kick-Off Meeting at the location approved by the Government. The meeting shall provide an introduction between the contractor personnel and Government personnel who will be involved with the TO. The meeting shall provide the opportunity to discuss technical, management, and security issues, and travel authorization and reporting procedures. At a minimum, the attendees shall include the contractor’s Key Personnel, the Program Manager(s), other relevant Government personnel, the CO, and the COR.

At least one business day prior to the Project Kick-Off Meeting, the contractor shall provide a Project Kick-Off Meeting Agenda for review and approval by the COR and the PM prior to finalizing. The agenda shall include, at a minimum, the following topics/deliverables:

a. Points of Contact (POCs) for all parties.

b. Personnel discussion (i.e., roles and responsibilities and lines of communication between contractor and Government).

c. Project Staffing Plan and status.

d. Financial reporting and invoicing requirements.

The Government will provide the contractor with the number of Government participants for the Project Kick-Off Meeting, and the contractor shall provide copies of the presentation for all present.

The contractor shall draft and provide a Project Kick-Off Meeting Minutes Report documenting the Project Kick-Off Meeting discussion and capturing any action items.