How well did IRS retrieve hardware from departing employees?

A few weeks ago, we issued a report that found nearly 14,000 IRS employees who accepted the Deferred Resignation Program offer retained access to one or more sensitive systems. These employees were on administrative leave before they officially separated from the agency. We also found that some employees who took a deferred resignation offer could have accessed IRS facilities or systems because the IRS did not initially have a policy to collect or disable the Personal Identity Verification cards of employees on administrative leave. This time, we reviewed if IRS retrieved information technology assets from employees that departed the agency.  First things first - what are information technology assets? Information technology assets include hardware and software used to support IRS operations. Hardware includes laptops, printers, and smartphones, while software can provide access to IRS systems through personal devices. Failure to recover assets form departing employees increases the risk of data and financial loss. Why did we do this audit? From April through July 2025, approximately 22,000 employees left the IRS through either through voluntary separations, the Deferred Resignation Program, or other incentives. These employees were assigned more than 32,000 information technology assets. We evaluated the IRS’s oversight and management of information technology assets assigned to separated employees, including those who participated in the Deferred Resignation Program. What did we find? We analyzed the records of the approximately 22,000 employees who departed from the IRS from April through July 2025. These employees were assigned more than 32,000 assets. Although most assets were returned, we identified 1,308 assets (4 percent) that showed as not returned as of November 2025. We shared the listing of these assets with IRS Information Technology and recommended they perform a reconciliation to locate these assets and update the asset management system. As of April 2026, the IRS has still not located 594 assets valued at more than $270,000. These assets included laptops and smartphones. IRS policy requires employees to return assets upon departure but does not establish a specific time frame for their return, which contributed to inaccuracies in the asset inventory. In addition, the IRS does not have a policy to recover the cost of unreturned assets from separated employees. For more of our findings: Read the full report Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.

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