The Internal Revenue Service failed to account for approximately $67 million in indirect costs from the implementation of the Obamacare, according to a new Treasury Inspector General report.
In the first two years of the law's implementation, the IRS did not consider any costs outside of direct expenditures like labor and contracts, the Wall Street Journal reports:
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said that the IRS should have done a better job of accounting for those indirect costs, including cost of workspace and computer support for people working on the health-care program. [...]
For fiscal years 2010 through 2012, the IRS spent about $488 million to carry out the law, using a special fund created by Congress, the report found. But the IRS accounted only for direct costs such as labor and contracts, the report said. That was consistent with the health-care law’s intent, but doesn’t give a full picture of the costs, it said.
The issue is important because the implementation fund is winding down, and the IRS must support the new functions from its existing budget. "It therefore continues to remain critical that the IRS develop complete and reliable estimates for all costs associated with the implementation" of the health-care law, the inspector general’s report said.