RFI27006865 Solicitation Specifications.pdf

RFI27006865

Solicitations Specifications

Tax Administration Systems

SECTION A. INTRODUCTION

The Rhode Island Department of Revenue, Division of Taxation, is soliciting informational responses from qualified vendors to provide information on: tax administration systems and tools, inclusive of an integrated tax system, high-volume document and remittance processing, tax data warehouse, MeF filing solution, tax web portal, analytics workflow tools, business intelligence reporting, and services to host and provide support to all systems in accordance with the terms of this Request for Information.

SECTION B: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

This RFI outlines the type of information being solicited and response structure requested from potential respondents.

A. Background

The State is requesting information from qualified vendors to provide tax administration systems and tools, inclusive of an integrated tax system, high-volume document and remittance processing, tax data warehouse, audit solutions, MeF filing solution, tax web portal, analytics workflow tools, business intelligence reporting, and services to host and provide support to all systems.

The State currently has tax administration technology and tools fully integrated into a Microsoft Azure FedRamp certified cloud compliant with IRS Publication 1075. The Division has approximately 240 employees that use one or more of these systems daily and has teams of analysts and technical support resources that work alongside the vendor in the support and maintenance of these systems. All vendor technology and configuration, including data and data models, are available to and owned by the State.

The Division is soliciting information to:

Understand the market offerings concerning tools and technology utilized in tax administration to ensure the Division of Taxation (“Division”) data processing technology and systems remains current and reliable;

Evaluate offerings to ensure the Division can modify, update, enhance, and evolve systems to readily respond to changing tax laws and State initiatives;

Evaluate offerings to ensure the Division can implement technology and techniques to continue to streamline and focus collections and audit activities to achieve increased tax revenue;

Identify potential improvements to enhance and increase online public access and services to the taxpayer;

Ensure the Division can implement and integrate third-party technology, software, business processes, and actionable intelligence from vendors, other than the tax administration systems vendor, into a hosted environment with the tax administration systems;

Evaluate offerings to ensure the Division can reconcile all taxpayer accounting and revenue account transactions to the technology’s internal general ledger, to the State’s accounting system (Workday), and to the banking accounts utilized by the State;

Understand technologies and techniques that allow for the Division to retain sole ownership and access to all data, databases, business rules, custom programming, and local configuration of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology;

Understand the pros and cons between maintaining our existing tax administration systems and implementing a new set of tax administration systems;

Understand the opportunities to create a long-term vendor partnership for support, maintenance, and enhancement of tax administration systems; and, Evaluate the relative status of the Division of Taxation’s current tax administration systems to comparable and emerging tax administration systems and technologies.

The current functional scope of these systems include:

Integrated Taxation System (ITS) – Rhode Island currently utilizes Government Premier software for the following functionality:

a. Taxpayer and Entity Management

i. Registration

ii. Demographic maintenance

iii. Extensible fields

iv. Taxpayer matching

b. Return and Payment Processing

i. Paper

ii. Tax portal

iii. EFT - ACH credit and debit

iv. Credit card

v. Modernized e-File

vi. Informational documents (e.g. W-2 / 1099)

c. Refunds and Distributions

i. Direct deposit

ii. Refund check

iii. Centralized treasury payments and distributions

iv. Fraud and scoring analytics

d. Taxpayer Accounting

e. Revenue Accounting (Cash Basis)

f. Inventory Management (e.g. Cigarette Stamps)

g. Notice Generation

i. Electronic notices

ii. Paper notices with printing preparation (e.g. QR return code)

iii. Certified mail

iv. Returned mail

h. Content Management

i. Case Management, Work Items, and Workflow

j. Interfaces

i. Standard (e.g. IRS CP2000 program)

ii. Implementation-specific (e.g. Rhode Island’s city / town offset program)

k. Audit

i. Remote audit toolkit (offline)

ii. Reports and workpapers

iii. Integration with ITS

iv. Audit selection

l. Collections and Compliance

i. Levy

ii. Lien

iii. Payment plan

iv. Settlement / abatement

v. Bankruptcy

vi. Outside collection / enforcement agency

vii. Letters of good standing / compliance check

viii. Compliance selection

ix. Hearings / appeals

m. Credit Management System

i. Assignment of credits

ii. Usage of credits

iii. Treasury increment financing

n. Reporting and Query Capability

High-volume paper document and remittance processing with Image Cash Letter (ICL deposit) – Division currently utilizes Fairfax Quick Modules software.

Cashier System - Division currently uses custom access databases and banking software.

Banking and Remittance Services - Division currently uses custom services from Tyler Technologies.

Tax data warehouse - Division currently utilizes Government Premier software.

Audit toolkit and workpapers - Division currently utilizes Government Premier software.

MeF filing solution - Division currently utilizes Government Premier software.

Tax Web Portal - Division currently utilizes Government Premier software.

Streamline Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA) Administration and Integration – Division currently uses custom services from Tyler Technologies for registration services, processing of returns, and process of payments.

International Fuel Tax Association (IFTA) Administration and Integration - Division currently utilizes Government Premier software.

Customer Relationship Management System – Division currently does not have a COTS software product.

Analytics workflow engine and tools – Division currently utilizes Knime workflow engine with support for Python, R, O365, and MS SQL integration.

Business intelligence reporting environment – Division currently utilizes Microsoft Power BI Software as a service.

Hosting Services in FedRAMP Cloud with Virtual Desktop Interfaces – Division currently uses Microsoft Azure Government Cloud for SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, along with VDI for all developers and analysts.

Compliance Programs - Division uses custom development or COTS packages, integrated with Government Premier software.

a. IRS (various programs)

b. Rhode Island State Agencies

c. City and Towns

d. Other States

Operations and Scheduling technology – Division currently uses JAMS software.

B. RFI Response

In their reply, Vendors should list the question in the RFI and provide their response beneath it.

The following outline is intended to standardize and structure responses for ease of analysis. Do NOT include a cost proposal with the RFI response as cost shall not be considered with this RFI.

Please note the below page counts are a maximum number of pages that will be considered.

The Division is soliciting a response including:

A ten-page executive summary of experience, prior success stories with State taxation agencies, and a vision for a future Rhode Island project.

At most a forty-page summary of technology and system offerings, as they relate to tax administration systems and / or are included in the functional scope above. This should include which COTS products or third-party systems are recommended in your solution.

At most a four-page survey of work previously done with the State of Rhode Island.

A set of at most four-page case studies concerning implementation, approach, lessons learned, and support of tax administration systems previously implemented for other U.S. States or similar jurisdictions. Please limit the response to no more than five case studies. At least two of the case studies should include personal and corporate income.

At most a six-page discussion on the pros and cons of implementing a new set of tax administration systems vs. supporting or enhancing existing tax administration systems. Please include discussion on methodology and any requirements for State-provided resources. Please note this discussion may not include costs but may include number of FTEs or hours with respect to a potential project plan.

At most a four-page discussion on your philosophy of protection, use, and ownership of data and its relation to cyber security.

At most a two-page discussion on the use and integration of customer relationship management systems with tax administration systems inclusive of omni-channel communication (email / phone / text / chat), VoIP phone systems, and call center functionality.

At most a six-page summary of suggested next steps for the State to undertake.

Please discuss any beneficial technology or systems that may be currently missing from the Division’s current systems.

An “Appendix A – Implemented Taxes” listing all taxes implemented, by State or similar Jurisdiction.

An “Appendix B – Security Management Plan” including a current or proposed security management plan for each subsystem denoted.

An “Appendix C – Security Questions”, as follows:

General

1. What levels of Cybersecurity Insurance does your firm carry for your solution, and are you able to provide additional insurance if needed?

2. Is your proposed solution restricted to any hardware, software, infrastructure, or platform?

3. As appropriate to the solution(s) being offered, indicate if your firm has any / all of the below, and provide your experience with each, as applicable, in your reply:

a. SOC1 and SOC2

b. PCI attestation

c. FedRAMP or StateRAMP authorization / compliance

d. NIST compliance

e. IRS publication 1075

f. Written information security policy

g. Any other compliance requirements (identify and explain)

4. What is your approach for managing access to systems and data, including remote access / IAM, MFA, least privilege principles, and separation of duties?

5. Describe your approach for audit / security logging and how you ensure the integrity of your security logging and monitoring systems.

6. Describe your approach for ensuring systems meet the April 2026 ADA

2.1 AA compliance requirements for external facing State websites.

Configuration Management

1. Describe your process for managing changes to system configurations to ensure compliance with configuration baselines. Include change approval processes and any tools used.

2. Are changes tested and reviewed?

3. Please describe any automated tools used for quality assurance during the deployment process.

Identification and Authentication

1. Do you provide unique identifiers for all users accessing the environment?

2. How do you manage cryptographic controls for securing authentication processes?

3. Please describe your procedures to Create / Modify / Remove User IDs.

Incident Response

1. Describe your incident response plan. How are incidents identified, assessed, and remediated?

2. What is your process for reporting security incidents? How do your third parties report to you?

Maintenance

1. What are your procedures for system maintenance and how do you ensure that maintenance activities do not compromise security?

2. What is your application maintenance strategy for patching, release, and issue management?

Media Protection

1. How do you manage and protect your digital and physical media containing sensitive information? Describe your data destruction and disposal processes.

Risk Assessment

1. Describe your approach, methodology and framework in conducting a risk assessment.

2. Please include a risk assessment matrix example.

3. Please describe your process for evaluating and replacing third party end-of-life software utilized in your systems.

System and Services Acquisition

1. Describe the security requirements you impose on your vendors and how you enforce these requirements.

System and Communications Protection

1. What measures do you take to protect your network and data transmissions?

2. Describe your approach to network segregation, firewall management, and intrusion detection systems.

3. Please describe your experience with and procedures for external vendor penetration testing.

System and Information Integrity

1. Describe your processes for patch management and vulnerability scanning.

2. Describe your virus prevention, detection, and update processes.

Disaster Recovery and Data Center (Physical and Network Security)

1. Summarize the disaster recovery plan(s) to the solution(s) with the defined RPO / RTO, including overview of backup procedures and scenarios for primary / secondary hosting facility disasters. Please include a sample plan, including DR testing, for an ITS.

Service Configuration and Data Management

1. Describe the procedures for configuring and deploying servers, including their hardening policies. Please include sample procedures.

C. RFI Evaluation & Demonstrations

Depending on the responses received to this RFI and how they align to the State’s vision, the State may call upon a Vendor to perform an interview or demonstration, via a Microsoft Teams and / or onsite meeting, to further understand the proposed capabilities.

The State, at its sole discretion, reserves the right to determine which vendors are selected for the interview and demonstration. The demonstration can be either onsite and / or virtual. If a Vendor is selected, any expenses incurred will be at the Vendor’s sole expense.

Vendors who are not offered an interview or demonstration are still able to respond to any RFP pursuant to this RFI.