The I.R.S.'s bumbling efforts to update its computers: the agency itself cites a shortage of technical expertise and lack of vision
Article Abstract:
A $10.7 billion program to automate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is hampered by a lack of technical expertise, an inability to keep track of costs and a failure to develop an overall plan describing how the agency's many computers would work together. The Planning for the Tax System Modernization Project, which began in 1987, is supposed to be in place by 1998, but problems are severe. Investigators even recommend that the IRS consider cutting back on acquisitions of new computer systems until the master operating plan is formulated. But if the project falls too far behind, tax experts fear a crisis similar to one experienced in 1985. At that time, the IRS came close to breaking down. Fred T. Goldberg, Jr., the agency's Commissioner, says that what worries him and other tax experts is the possibility that the agency's processing system 'might break of its own weight.'
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1990
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Rules weighed on transfer of big sums electronically
Article Abstract:
The US Department of the Treasury will review guidelines to regulate the electronic transfer of money among international banks because drug traffickers are using loopholes in the system to launder vast amounts of drug money. The Treasury will regulate electronic transfers for the first time and require banks to help investigators trace illegal funds. The transfers that are so hard to trace usually originate from a home or office microcomputer. Users can instruct their microcomputers to tell the bank's computer to transfer money out of personal accounts and into foreign banks. Foreign transfers do not have to be reported by the sending or receiving bank regardless of the size of the transfer. New rules would require either bank to keep a record of the transaction, including the name and account of the customer, or require more information about the customer's business.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1989
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Banking's technology helps drug dealers export cash ...
Article Abstract:
Narcotics dealers are using automation technology - computers and facsimile machines - to transfer illegal drug profits out of the US. An estimated $100 billion a year in drug money is electronically transferred from the US to cocaine-producing countries such as Columbia. Because money is very difficult to monitor once it gets into the banking system, a customer with a personal computer can inconspicuously transfer large sums of money from his or her account to a foreign account. The US government requires banks to report deposits of $10,000 or more, but the reports are too numerous for investigators to keep track of them all. The government is considering solutions to the problem of wire transfer accountability.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1989
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: The fight for Toronto: a proposed merger draws cries of outrage from rich and poor, right and left. The case of the quirky neurologist: the singular Oliver Sacks has produced a rivetting document of human oddities
- Abstracts: Who says you have to be young to love a computer? Who's taking care of the children?
- Abstracts: New task for the computer: making clothes. Keeping clothes defect-free. Industry group pushes for trade law changes
- Abstracts: Computer project sends messages to Gulf. Computer helps professors match names and faces. Chess-playing computer closing in on champions; speedy, powerful analysis makes for a formidable opponent
- Abstracts: Intel announces a faster version of its fastest PC chip. Texas Instruments to sell computer unit to Hewlett