Why The IRS Gave Equifax A No-Bid Contract Extension

You've probably heard the news. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) gave a no-bid contract to Equifax, even after knowing about the credit reporting agency's massive data breach and arguably lackadaisical data security approaches by management.

Why would the IRS do this? The contract's synopsis in the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) site stated on September 30:

"This action was to establish an order for third party data services from Equifax to verify taxpayer identity and to assist in ongoing identity verification and validations needs of the Service. A sole source order is required to cover the timeframe needed to resolve the protest on contract TIRNO-17-Z-00024. This is considered a critical service that cannot lapse."

C/Net explained the decision and sequence of key events:

"The IRS already had enough trouble dealing with tax fraud, losing $5.8 billion to scammers in 2013... The contract, first reported by Politico,... describes the agreement as a "sole source order," calling Equifax's help a "critical service." When it comes to credit monitoring, there are really only three major names in the US: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Experian has also suffered a breach... The IRS actually awarded its authentication service contract to another company in July, Jeffrey Tribiano, the agency's deputy commissioner for operations support told members of Congress. Equifax protested losing the contract to the US Government Accountability Office on July 7, according to documents. The office will decide on the protest by October 16. Until then, the IRS could not move onto its new partner. That meant that when the IRS' old contract with Equifax was supposed to expire on Friday (Sept. 29), Tribiano said, millions of Americans would not have been able to verify their identity with the agency for more than two weeks."

Wow! So, the IRS was caught between a rock and a hard place... or "caught between a rock and a hacked place" as C/Net described. Apparently, consumers taxpayers are also caught.

Once again, another mess involving Equifax gives consumers that "I've been mugged" feeling.