WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service paid a contractor $188,000 to provide one person to do clerical work over 11 months.
The contract was included as one example of financial waste in a government report Thursday on the IRS’ involvement in a program ordered by President Bush in 2004 to develop more-secure ID cards for federal workers.
The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration said the IRS also needlessly spent almost $2 million on a computer security system that the tax agency does not plan using at this time.
The IRS was responsible for developing and putting in place the program for providing more-secure identification cards to some 150,000 Treasury employees. Of the $30 million the IRS has committed so far for the project, about $3.5 million was spent on acquisitions that should have been avoided, the report said.
The IRS said it agreed with the inspector general’s findings and had acted to ensure more-rigorous contract management and oversight.
