Direct File SSN.pdf

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE

WASHINGTON, DC 20224

IRS Transformation Office Inflation Reduction Act

“IRS Direct File Digital Services Support”

Sources Sought Notice

1. SOURCES SOUGHT:

THIS SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE (SSN) IS RELEASED PURSUANT TO FEDERAL

ACQUISITION REGULATION (FAR) PART 10, MARKET RESEARCH.

This SSN is issued solely for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as either a solicitation or the obligation on the part of Government. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts or quotations. This notice is for market research purposes only. Further, this SSN does not commit or guarantee the Government will issue any solicitation for the described requirements in the future.

The North American Industry Classification Systems (NAICS) Code proposed for the requirement is 541512, Computer Systems Design Services. The size standard for NAICS 541512 is $34M. Comments on this NAICS and suggestions for alternatives must include supporting rationale. The PSC that is intended for this acquisition is DA01.

No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests. This notice is published to gain knowledge of potential vendors capable of providing services for the draft IRS Transformation Office Performance Work Statement (PWS).

Vendors with the skill and capability necessary to perform the various requirements described in the attached draft PWS are invited to provide a response per the requirements listed below.

Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. Respondents will not be notified of the results of this analysis. All data received in response to this SSN that is marked or designated as corporate or proprietary information will be fully protected from release outside the Government. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly identified. Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with all applicable Government regulations. All documentation shall become the property of the Government and will not be returned.

2. OBJECTIVES:

Technical Capabilities

● The IRS seeks to identify potential vendors with the skills and capabilities necessary to perform the requirements outlined in the attached draft PWS. The IRS is looking to identify:

○ Digital service businesses with an active Small Business Administration (SBA) 8(a) certification that can perform the requirements outlined in the draft PWS. Responses for other than SBA 8(a) vendors will not be reviewed.

3. BACKGROUND:

IRS Direct File is a new service that provides taxpayers with the ability to file a tax return online directly with the IRS, for free. Direct File employs a “blended teams” model, where federal employees and contributors from multiple Contractor teams are combined into small, multidisciplinary sprint teams, working side by side to maintain Direct File and develop new functionality. The objective of this effort is to provide agile product design and delivery services on Direct File product teams in order to expand Direct File functionality and make it available to all qualifying taxpayers.

4. SUBMISSION INFORMATION:

See attached PWS for the draft requirements for IRS Direct File Digital Services Support. The IRS is requesting submission of Technical Capabilities addressing the following questions. The company's standard format is acceptable; however, the limit for all responses is not to exceed twenty (20) single-sided pages, 10 font size, 8 ½ x 11-inch pages, excluding any cover page. Each response shall address each of the following sections A and B:

A. General Information:

1. Company Name

2. Company Address;

3. Company Point of Contact, Phone and Email address;

4. Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) Number;

5. Business status (i.e., small business, disadvantaged, Hub Zone, woman-owned, etc.); If business size varies depending upon contract vehicle, please specify;

6. Brief description of the company's business size;

7. List any contract vehicle along with the associated contract number and task area(s) appropriate for this notice; and list related North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code that you offer as it relates to this project.

B. Technical Information:

Respond to the questions below about the attached Performance Work Statement:

Question 1 The Government has established blended teams that include government technologists and contractors. What experience does your company have working on digital services in a blended team environment and how do you measure success?

Question 2 Address your company’s ability to hire engineers with the expertise to develop software using:

• TypeScript and React

• Java and Spring Framework

• Scala and functional programming paradigms

Question 3 What experience do you have working on software projects that were partially or fully open source?

Question 4 What experience have you had working on projects that involved taking complex legal or procedural language and turning it into something easy for the public-facing users?

Question 5 What experience have you had working with financial data and conducting testing and QA of systems that must accurately apply complex financial business rules?

Question 6 What experience have you had making sure your products are accessible to all users?

Question 7 When planning user research for a product that serves a population of “everyone,” what would you do to ensure research participants represent the necessary diversity and what different types of people would you seek?

Question 8 What experience have you had working on products that were translated into other languages (e.g., coding for internationalization, conducting user research in another language, translating, writing for language access, etc.)?

Question 9 What experience have you had designing and testing complex information architecture and what activities did you do to design and test it?

Question 10 What is the employee turnover rate in your company? What incentives do you use for retaining employees?

Question 11 Has your company worked on any contract with the IRS in the past 3 – 5 years?

5. DUE DATE:

Vendors capable of providing these services should submit a Statement of Capability containing the above reference information via e-mail to daffeney.l.wilson@irs.gov no later than 9:00 AM EDT, Tuesday, August 20, 2024.

mailto:daffeney.l.wilson@irs.gov

Responses shall not exceed 20 pages and shall not contain any brochures, advertising or any other type of generic, extraneous, graphic literature or documents that have not been requested and are not relevant or essential in demonstrating the vendor’s ability to provide the required services. Vendors may provide links to relevant websites, as appropriate. Vendors shall not provide exterior links for the IRS to access its response to this SSN.

Vendors shall reference “SSN Response - Digital Services Support” in the subject line of their response email as well as in the subject line of any e-mail correspondence referencing this notice.

** THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT RESPOND TO PHONE CALLS REGARDING THIS

NOTICE **

Thank you for your interest.