GAO: IRS struggling to secure taxpayer info.

• Position: CONSUMER RECORDS

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Just in time for tax season, a new government report has found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is having trouble securing personal taxpayer information.

In addition, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the agency is not doing enough to prevent "unauthorized users" from accessing such sensitive information. The report warns the IRS suffers from a "material weakness" in information security. For example, some sensitive data is not encrypted, according to the GAO.

Also, testing revealed the IRS still receives many hard copy tax documents...