Business Authorization Solution

Amendment 1:

• The Questions & Answers Document has been posted on November 17, 2023. 
• The RFI closing date has been extended to December 15, 2023 at 5:00pm ET. 

“Business Authorization Solution”

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

TO ALL INTERESTED PARTIES

Sources Sought – THIS REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) IS RELEASED PURSUANT TO FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (FAR) PART 10, MARKET RESEARCH. 

This RFI/Sources Sought is issued solely for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as either a solicitation or the obligation on the part of Government. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts or quotations. This notice is for market research purposes only.  

No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests.

Respondents will NOT be notified of the results of the analysis. All data received in response to this Sources Sought synopsis that is marked or designated as corporate or proprietary information will be fully protected from release outside the Government. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly identified.  Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with all applicable Government regulations.  All documentation shall become the property of the Government and will not be returned.

BACKGROUND:  

The Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in support of PGLD as well as SB/SE is seeking information on potential solutions to authorize owners, partners and officers of a Partnership, S-Corporation, C Corporation and Non-Profit Organization to act on behalf of businesses in a real time online account.  This officer of a corporation conducting business with the IRS on behalf of the corporate entity must be an individual as defined in IRC 6103(e)(1)(D). Although there are several technological and conceptual guardrails within which the solution would likely need to function, the IRS does not have a predefined idea of how a successful solution would need to function.  A solution submission does not have to provide an end-to-end approach to the authorization strategy because the Service may adopt a multi-faceted approach that provides a stronger authorization framework. 

A business authorization solution would need to be in line with any existing policy for other channels such as IRS phone business product lines that follow guidance in IRC 6103(e)(1)(D) and IRM 11.3.2.

This solution will need to integrate (plug and play) with the existing IRS Business Online Account product that provides services to owners of Sole Proprietorships, Partnerships, C corporations, S-corporations, and Non-Profit Organizations. 

The IRS does not have a predefined idea of how the solution should work but will select a solution that reduces potential fraud and Identity Theft from unauthorized access from bad actors.  The IRS lacks data elements to establish a one-to-one relationship between an individual and a business entity to validate that the individual is authorized to view federal tax information or to act (or legally bind according to state law) on behalf of the business entity.   A solution can be access to data elements to improve existing IRS business authorization.

The IRS already has a solution to verify the identity of the individual and only needs to verify that the individual is authorized to act on behalf of the business.

There are many business entity types that will need a solution, but this solution will only address officers, partners or owners of Partnerships, S Corporations, C Corporations, and non-profit organizations.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION:

The IRS is requesting submission of Technical Capabilities.

I.      Technical Capabilities - Responses may not exceed 7 pages, excluding the cover page. Each response should include the following information:

a) Company Name;

b) Company Address;

c) Company Point of Contact, Phone and Email address;

d) Current Contract Number and Task Area(s) appropriate for this notice; including the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) Number and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code.

e) Type of Company (i.e., small business, 8(a), woman owned, veteran owned, etc.)

f) Vendor’s capability statement that addresses organizational and staff experience and expertise specifically related to helping industry such as the banking industry in providing a solution for business authorization to online products?

g) Provide an estimate of time you will need to design, develop, test and deploy your proposed solution.

h) Provide what post-implementation and/or operations & maintenance support would be needed, if applicable.

i) Identify whether your proposed solution will be a proprietary or a commercial off the shelf (COTS) product. If a COTS product, describe the tailoring effort. 

j) List three organizations to which similar types of services have been previously provided within the last three years – to include contract number, description of the requirement, dollar value, contract type, name and telephone number of the customer.

k) Delivery timeframe required to install and set-up the product, verify compliance and conduct training.  Does the delivery date vary on the item being purchase/ service being performed?

l) Commercial practices (e.g. warranty, support, spare parts, limitation of liability, etc).

m) Possible solutions and approaches that may currently exist in the marketplace and information regarding innovative ideas or concepts regarding the product or service in question.

n) Are there qualifications/ certifications requirements for individuals or to the vendor as whole who is performing the services?  If so, what are they and do they apply to this acquisition?

o) Provide the features of your solution regarding its flexibility and ability to handle business authorizations. For instance, does your solution provide the ability to authorize an individual from an existing set of business entity data held by your company.  ‘what-if’ scenario authorizations?

p) Provide features of your solution regarding its ability to limit the amount of unauthorized access from individuals wanting to business on behalf of an entity. Does your solution track the level of confidence of each transaction attempted by an individual? Examples of the types of situations that IRS expects to see in some RFI responses are:

• Provide in your solution to allow for authorization when a business changes ownership.

• Provide in your solution to allow for authorization if a corporate officer or partner has been fired or removed from a company.

• Provide how your solution will attempt to reconcile an individual who has the same name (John Smith of Cincinnati, Ohio) as someone who appears on a company’s articles of incorporation (John Smith of Cleveland, Ohio).

• Provide in the solution the documentation (such as articles of incorporation, email domain registries, payroll data, data from official company website, etc.) that will be available and how the data will be used in the process.

• Provide in your solution how to account for a change in the corporation’s tax status.

q) Provide your ability to become FedRAMP compliant in your response.

r)   Provide implementation service hours and a rough order of magnitude for a potential solution of this type.

Questions in response to this Sources Sought Notice may be submitted electronically on or before November 13, 2023, at 5:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The Government reserves the right to respond to some, all or none of the questions submitted. Vendors that meet the requirements described in this announcement are invited to submit their capability statements/RFI responses.  The deadline for responses to this RFI is 5:00 PM EDT, December 12, 2023.  Responses should be forwarded via email to both the primary, Marsha.L.Coleman@irs.gov and "cc" to Heather.M.Mickle@irs.gov

Responses shall not exceed 7 pages and shall not contain any brochures, advertising or any other type of extraneous, graphic literature or documents that have not been requested and are not relevant or essential in demonstrating the company’s ability to provide the required services.  Vendors may provide links to relevant websites, as appropriate.

Vendors shall reference “RFI - Business Authorization Solution” in the subject line of their response as well as in the subject line of any other e-mail correspondence referencing this notice.

** THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT RESPOND TO PHONE CALLS. **

Thank you for your interest. 

Contracting Office Address:

Internal Revenue Service 

5000 Ellin Road 

Lanham, MD 20706

Primary Point of Contact:

Marsha Coleman  

Marsha.L.Coleman@irs.gov

Secondary Point of Contact:

Heather Mickle

Heather.M.Mickle@irs.gov