Electronic Tax Research

The Internal Revenue Service has awarded contract 2043FY26C00017 to Bloomberg Industry Group on a sole-source basis for electronic tax research services on March 31, 2026. The award covers a firm-fixed-price bridge contract for Bloomberg Tax software products—Corporate Tax Analyzer, Income Tax Planner, and IMS Middleware—including license use rights, technical support, custom software integration, development, and maintenance on an annual basis.

The justification emphasizes service continuity and Bloomberg's status as the incumbent provider. The IRS relies on Bloomberg's proprietary databases, specialized federal and state tax law resources, and customized research tools developed over the existing contract period. Critical operational dependencies include ongoing litigation support, data integrity for customized databases, user training and platform familiarity, integration with existing agency systems, and regulatory compliance requirements for current tax and legal resources.

The Contracting Officer determined pricing fair and reasonable based on consistency with the current contract, preliminary market research identifying three potential competing vendors, added-value services including customized training and dedicated support, and alignment with an Independent Government Cost Estimate. Market research for the bridge contract, limited due to urgent continuity needs, included a 2024 Request for Information on SAM.gov yielding five responses, virtual industry demonstrations with three potential vendors, and analysis of publicly available information from major electronic legal research service vendors.

The IRS commits to removing barriers to competition for a subsequent full and open competitive procurement through adequate solicitation timeline planning, requirements refinement focusing on essential functionalities rather than proprietary features, and development of a comprehensive training and change management plan to facilitate potential transition to a new provider.