IEP 2.0 RFI Overview and Questions.pdf

Integrated Enterprise Portal (IEP) 2.0 Request for Information

The Integrated Enterprise Portal (IEP) contract provides the primary digital gateway and platform connecting taxpayers, third parties, tax practitioners, and employees with the IRS. The current IEP vendor provides a range of application development, hosting, security, and operations services for over 90 IRS business applications, many of which enable delivery of the annual Tax Filing Season. The IRS anticipates awarding a new Information Technology managed services contract for IEP services during Q2-Q3 of FY2023.

The IRS is publishing this Request for Information (RFI) to communicate current plans for a potential future IEP acquisition, while providing industry an opportunity to comment on the current draft materials.

The IRS anticipates that the NAICS code for these services will be 541512 (Computer Systems Design Services). The materials included in this RFI are “draft,” with “To Be Determined” (TBD) notes for sections still under construction. Should you have any general questions pertaining to these instructions, please submit them in writing to Michael.R.Villano@irs.gov by January 14, 2022.

I. Background on the IRS Mission

The IRS collects the revenue to fund the federal government and administer the nation’s tax laws. During 2020, the IRS processed over 240 million tax returns and supplemental documents. The IRS administers and collects revenue from a variety of taxes, including individual and business income, estate and gift, employment, and excise taxes. In addition to interactions with individual taxpayers, the IRS routinely interacts with small and large businesses, partnerships, domestic and foreign financial institutions, governmental organizations (including federal, state, and foreign entities), Indian Tribal governments, tax-exempt entities (such as charitable organizations, foundations, universities and trusts), and 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 approximately 83,000 employees who are geographically dispersed over nearly 500 locations.

The IRS has made many changes in recent years, improving tax processing systems, increasing electronic filing and payment options, and expanding services available on IRS.gov for taxpayers and tax professionals. As the needs of taxpayers, the tax community and the nation rapidly evolve, it is clear that the IRS needs to look at the future in a more comprehensive way. It needs to take advantage of the latest technology to enhance the entire taxpayer experience. It also must do so in a way that will meet the needs of taxpayers, the tax community, and our employees in an efficient and effective manner.

The IRS is focusing on a series of improvements to the tax administration system: a more integrated and secure delivery of taxpayer services, a movement to administer taxes through more efficient customer-focused channels, and a more streamlined compliance program that identifies and resolves issues sooner, along with a stronger set of foundational capabilities to support those efforts.

Additional information about the IRS strategic plan and goals, organizational structure, program statistics, and Future State Initiative is available through the links below:

• IRS Strategic Plan and Other References

• Today’s IRS Organization

• Statistics of Income Tax Stats – IRS Data Book

• Tax Statistics

• IRS Future State Initiative mailto:Michael.R.Villano@irs.gov https://www.irs.gov/uac/strategic-plan-and-other-references https://www.irs.gov/uac/todays-irs-organization https://www.irs.gov/uac/soi-tax-stats-irs-data-book https://www.irs.gov/uac/tax-stats https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/future-state-initiative

II. Current State, Challenges, and Priorities of the Integrated Enterprise Portal

The IEP has evolved into a primary gateway for external users – including taxpayers, third-party tax preparers, and other business partners – and internal users – IRS employees and contractors with staff-like access – to access IRS business services.

The current IEP contract was awarded in 2017 and is an 8-year, agency-specific Indefinite Delivery – Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) with a $692M ceiling. The IEP vendor provides a range of application development, hosting, security, and operations services for over 90 IRS business applications. Some of the IEP-hosted application suites, such as Modernized eFile (MeF) and Integrated Customer Communications Environment (ICCE), include multiple applications that are critical to the IRS’ core mission: delivering a successful Filing Season annually.

IEP 2.0 acquisition objectives include:

• Ensure continuity of IEP services and access to IRS business systems and services, which is key to supporting the IRS mission.

• Effectively utilize IRS workforce skills and availability to acquire, integrate, manage, and deliver IEP services.

• Provide IEP services that efficiently leverage technology over the project's life cycle and accommodate service changes driven by IRS policies and business mandates.

• Transition and fully operate all IEP services no later than the end of the IEP 1.5 contract period of performance.

• Enhance IRS oversight and accountability for IEP services by using efficient IT service management processes to continually improve taxpayer experience and enhance customer service.

The IRS also requires vendor support to provide expertise in program and project management, technical solutions and analysis, and system integration support to integrate modernized business solutions into the IRS. Such support is required in all dimensions of the IEP 2.0 Program, including developing and supporting the deployment of new applications and innovations to meet evolving IRS taxpayer services.

III. RFI Questions for Industry Input/Response

The IEP solution must also be able to function within the existing enterprise architecture. To ascertain the extent to which solutions can support the future-state vision and are compatible with existing platforms, the following questions are provided.

The IRS requests that responses to this RFI be provided no later than January 19, 2022, via an e-mail (with the subject line “IRS RFI IEP 2.0”) to Michael.R.Villano@irs.gov.

Please keep responses to 10 pages or less in total. Unless otherwise noted, the IRS generally expects responses to the individual questions to be a short paragraph. Format for responses shall be in Times New Roman, 12-point font with 1-inch margins.

There is no guarantee that the IRS will have funding or issue a solicitation for this potential requirement, nor will it reimburse any costs associated with responding to this RFI.

The IRS acknowledges that industry partners can expend substantial resources responding to RFIs. The IRS hopes that the current volume and specificity of the information provided in this RFI underscores its interest in identifying existing capabilities and expanding competition for any potential future acquisition.

Based on the responses received from the RFI, the IRS intends to hold one-on-one sessions with respondents. One-on-ones are at the sole discretion of the Government and may be held with none, some, or all respondents.

The IRS seeks responses to the following:

1. Provide a Company Overview

a. A brief description of your company, to include size and overarching value proposition (i.e., solutions provider, value-added reseller, hardware, etc.)

b. Company capabilities.

c. Are you currently providing, or have you recently provided, similar services in scope, size and complexity to any government or commercial entity? If so, please provide the agency’s name, contract number and contract value with a description of the work provided.

d. Which government-wide acquisition contract(s) (GWACs), GSA Schedules or Best in Class (BIC) contracts does your organization hold that may accommodate the work described in the draft Performance Work Statement (PWS)? Please provide the schedule or GWAC number.

2. Are there service level objectives (SLOs) that you have seen in similar type of work that would allow the IRS to manage service performance effectively?

a. If applicable, please describe specific performance measures have you seen effectively applied within similar types of work.

b. What performance incentives/disincentives would you recommend and why?

3. What experience does your organization have with proposing pricing for and delivering work that is incrementally defined and funded through work requests? Please highlight any best practices your organization has observed.

4. In addition to the Application Portfolio Attributes, are there additional application technical stack characteristics that would be useful to effectively estimate application migration and hosting complexity and costs? What software stack (including virtualized or abstracted physical hardware resources) or technology stack (frameworks, languages, developer tools) elements must be defined to effectively estimate cost of ownership implications as deployments increase in complexity?

5. Are there requirements in the provided draft performance work statement (PWS) that are difficult to understand? Are there additional categories of requirements that could be added to clarify the IRS need? Please respond to this question using the spreadsheet provided titled, “IEP 2.0 Requirements extract for RFI responses.”

6. As the IRS continues to pursue modernizing infrastructure solutions, there are projects where vendors are required to migrate and support applications on infrastructure that is provided by the IRS as government-furnished equipment (GFE). Please provide thoughts on how responsibilities for service level objectives can be effectively allocated between service providers.

7. As the IRS continues to modernize, an important supporting objective is to be able to effectively allocate operations and maintenance costs to IEP service users (i.e., hosted applications and services).

Please explain how the IRS could track and allocate IEP managed services at the application level.