InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
On The Web, Outsiders Helped
By Edward Cone
Issue date: April 15, 1996
One undeniable success in the irs' modernization effort is the agency's spiffy site on the World Wide Web. It's comprehensive, useful, even fun to look at. The site, which opened in early January, came in under budget and ahead of schedule.
The bad news: The IRS didn't build the site, and it wasn't even done as part of the Tax System's Modernization program. In fact, the IRS Web site was conceived and funded separately from TSM, designed by Websys Inc. in Arlington, Va. "We started development in November '95, and opened on Jan. 8-the day the government shut down," says Steven Shaffer, CEO of Websys. "Our total cost, including hardware, connectivity, and people, was probably about $500,000."
What the IRS got for the money is more than 3,000 Web pages that provide information and forms to taxpayers. No online filing via the Web site is available for taxpayers because of security concerns.
The site already averages some 600,000 hits daily. "We're doing about 30,000 forms or publication packs per day out of the FTP server," says Shaffer. "Those things cost about $3.50 per shot by mail, and about 2.5 to 3 cents for us."
Shaffer says he senses resistance to his project in some quarters. "Not everybody in the IRS is jumping for joy over the success of this project," he says. "They aren't bad people, but their jobs are on the line." Still, he says he's eager to do more work for the agency: "I know of a project, the first initiative they funded to beta-test electronic filing, which is one of my most-requested features. We could sit down with a Java script and write it in three or four days."
Rep. Jim Lightfoot, chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees IRS funding, says he was excited when IRS commissioner Margaret Milner Richardson demonstrated the site for him. "They did well by taking this job outside," Lightfoot says. "They ought to be doing a lot more of it."
Michael Dolan, IRS deputy commissioner, says more such moves are on the way: "The home page is a metaphor for where we want to take TSM."
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