Comprehensive Research Services (Award Group III)

The IRS is committed to providing standardized consistent electronic research services to employees throughout the country. The acquisition and management of these research services are centralized under the Office of Service-wide Policy, Directives, and Electronic Research (SPDER). The objective of this requirement is to obtain, through competitively awarded firm fixed price contracts, a suite of robust electronic research services to meet the Agency's electronic research needs.

The IRS has a wide range of diverse users with different and unique tax, legal business, and news research requirements. The principal use of electronic research services is to complete a full analysis of a tax return, whether as part of the audit process, collection process, or assistance process. This improves the quality of cases, assists in the fair application of the laws, and helps front line assistors resolve taxpayer questions. Users of these research materials are primarily: Customer Service Representatives, Revenue Officers, Revenue Agents, International Agents, Attorneys, Employment Tax Personnel, Tax Compliance Officers, Tax Auditors, Appeals employees, Estate and Gift Tax Attorneys, Employee Plans Specialists, Exempt Organizations Specialists, and Librarians.

In addition to tax law research, employees in other disciplines use the legal, business and news services to:
• Research personnel and labor law,
• Conduct statistical and trend analysis,
• Research academic journals and publications related to tax administration, and
• Identify industry news and trends.

These employees include: General Legal Attorneys, Personnel Specialists, Labor Relation Specialists, Statisticians, and Operational Research Specialists.

The Treasury Departmental Office (Treasury) has partnered with the IRS to obtain its research services. This Statement of Work outlines the requirements of the larger IRS audience, while at the same time affording Treasury the option to procure research services using the IRS contract vehicle. Treasury Departmental Office employees include attorneys, economists, tax professionals and financial professionals.

The IRS and Treasury will purchase services for a fixed number of users which can be increased or decreased at negotiated intervals, which will occur no more than twice a year. Approximately 30,000 IRS employees and 500 Treasury employees are users of research services. Three contracts may be awarded for this requirement; one for Offline Tax Research Services, one for Tax Research Services, and one for Comprehensive Research Services.
Anticipated users for each award group are described under the award group requirements.