WASHINGTON, DC - After the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) declined to respond to a recent request from Ways & Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman John Lewis (D-GA), the two members today sent a follow-up letter, reiterating their request for a range of information related to any third-party analysis that was conducted on the usability of the new individual income tax return - IRS Form 1040 - and its six schedules. In today’s letter, Neal and Lewis also asked for details surrounding the recent removal of references to the “Form 1040 Usability" survey from the IRS website.
When Chairman Neal and Rep. Lewis sent their initial letter on Feb. 14, the IRS website listed on the “Customer Satisfaction Surveys" page the existence of a “Form 1040 Usability" survey with an end date of Dec. 31, 2018. The vendor listed for the survey was a Federally Funded Research and Development Center/MITRE. In the time since Neal and Lewis sent their letter to the IRS, that information was removed from the website. However, on MITRE Corporation’s website, there is still a page entitled “MITRE 1040 Form Research Study" that was used to determine the eligibility of potential participants in the study.
In today’s letter, Neal and Lewis demanded the IRS not only respond to their February 14 letter by March 7, but also provide several details regarding the deletion of the 1040 survey information in that response. Specifically, the members requested to know why the survey was removed, when exactly it was removed, who specifically was involved in its removal, and who at Treasury was aware of or approved the removal.
