The Internal Revenue Service's Business Systems Modernization program, a multiyear effort aimed at wholly reconstructing the agency's computer systems, showed improvements during fiscal year 2004 but still suffers from weaknesses in several of its management practices, a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report released Aug. 18 concluded. The modernization program, if successful, will upgrade existing IRS systems, construct new ones, and involve integrating thousands of software and hardware products over 15 years at a cost of more than $8 billion, said the report, dated Aug. 10 and signed by Deputy Inspector General for Audit Pamela J. Gardiner. IRS has allocated approximately $2.1 billion to the program and associated administrative activities, the report said; BSM began in 1998 but fully entered into operation during 2001. TIGTA has conducted annual analyses of the program since 2002. Read the report and the IRS' answer