ADP Acquisitions

In response to a congressional request, GAO investigated the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Integrated Data Retrieval System procurement to determine: (1) whether IRS designed the solicitation for a particular contractor; (2) who was responsible for the repugnant actions the General Services Administration's Board of Contract Appeals cited; and (3) whether there was any contractor or agency personnel misconduct.

GAO found that: (1) although problems occurred in the procurement process, there was no evidence of unethical or illegal actions on the part of IRS or contractor employees; (2) although IRS showed a lack of attention to federal automatic data processing procurement standards, there was no indication that an equipment requirement was meant to favor or exclude any offerer; and (3) an administrative law judge who presided over the procurement dispute case, stated that his comment about repugnant actions referred to the IRS failure to provide an offerer a better opportunity to rebut candid comments about its product's inferiority. GAO also found major errors in the IRS pricing and technical requirements evaluation which resulted in higher contract costs.