Audit: IRS Must Improve Fleet Data, Reduce Size

An audit of the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Criminal Investigation (CI) fleet management program found incomplete data, questionable reporting of commuting mileage, and excess pool vehicles.

Auditors found CI fleet usage data was often inaccurate or incomplete. For example, three agents reported mileage of between 95,000 and 242,000 miles in a 12-month period, and 125 agents reported zero commuting miles, which means they should not be assigned a vehicle. Auditors requested data such as vehicle inventory reports, work-from-home analyses, and missing mileage data, and some of this data was incomplete.  

Auditors also found many special agents did not meet the criteria for “home-to-work” transportation. These criteria include a commuting distance of less than 50 miles one way and having at least 10 “call-outs” per year. Auditors also noted some reported between 200 and 750 call-outs in a 12-month period, making the data questionable.

Finally, auditors found CI is keeping an excessive number of fleet vehicles. The criteria allows for one vehicle per special agent in the field and one pool vehicle for each supervisory special agent’s staff. However, CI does not have mileage utilization criteria, and about one-third of agents did not meet minimum usage requirements used by another IRS division (7,200 miles annually in metro areas and 12,000 in rural areas). Additionally, the division added pool vehicles annually but also kept older ones. In 2017-2019, 208 vehicles were added to the fleet — if removed, the division could see a cost savings of more than $1 million.

CI agreed to four of auditors’ six recommendations and plans to implement an automated procedure for special agent to upload their own vehicle reports and conducting quarterly audits to correct questionable data.

The IRS Criminal Investigation division provides about 2,300 leased and owned vehicles to special agents. It is managed by the CI fleet manager.