The agency’s lack of prohibition could have ‘potentially compromised confidential taxpayer information,’ the TIGTA says.
The IRS has failed to comply with a federal agency ban on TikTok, according to a recent report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
In February 2023, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the “No TikTok on Government Devices” guidance for removing the app from federal devices. Subsequently, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) was modified to mandate that government contracts include a provision prohibiting the use of TikTok during the contract period.
A review of 216 contract actions between June and August of 2023 found that 118 of them (55 percent) did not include such prohibitions.
IRS officials agreed that 98 out of the 118 contracts should have included the TikTok ban clause. They suggested that the clause was not included because “it was either a timing issue of when the guidance became effective and when the contract was awarded, or it was more than likely due to an omission by the contracting officer.”
The tax agency’s management agreed to some of the TIGTA’s recommendations. Specifically, the IRS committed to reviewing the contracts and modifying them to ensure compliance with FAR’s TikTok prohibition.
In December, the TIGTA investigated the IRS and found that the agency did not update its “Bring Your Own Device” policies to comply with OMB guidance.
The agency failed to inform workers under the Bring Your Own Device program that the prohibition on TikTok applied to their personal devices as well.
The IRS Criminal Investigation was found to have allowed more than 2,800 mobile devices to use TikTok. In addition, around 900 IRS Criminal Investigation employees were allowed access to TikTok on their computers.
The Epoch Times reached out to the IRS for comment but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.
Threat of National Security
In January, Republican lawmakers had raised concerns about the IRS’s failure to implement the prohibition of TikTok.
“This is particularly troubling as the Chinese Communist Party continues to target American institutions, businesses, and citizens’ data,” they said.
While the OMB rules on TikTok are only applicable to government agencies, the Biden administration is pushing for a nationwide ban on the app.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) pointed out at the time that the Chinese Embassy lobbied against the bill. Such actions show “how dearly [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping is invested in this product—a product, by the way, [that] is not even allowed to operate in the Chinese domestic market itself.”
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew had vowed to fight the matter in the country.
“The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail again,” he said.
The company eventually filed a lawsuit.
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