D -- Data Processing Services for IRS - Digitized Form 990-PF Data

The purpose of this amendment is as follows: 1)Respond to vendors questions. 2)Add the following: The Government will no longer accept questions pertaining to this solicitation. 3)Incorporate the FAR clause: FAR 52.204-7 Central Contractor Registration (OCT 2003). 4)Remove section entitled, SCOPE in its entirety and replace it with the following: SCOPE The scope of work encompasses the Contractor to provide subscription service and a license to use Form 990PF data that has been digitized by the contractor. The scope of work is not for transcription services. 5) The proposal due date remains, September 20, 2005, 4:00 p.m. EDT. Questions (Q) and Answers (A): Q.1: Is there an incumbent? A.1: Yes, Philanthropic Research, Inc. (Guidestar) Q.2: What is meant by the phrase of "Government acceptance"? A.2: Government acceptance constitutes acknowledgment that the supplies or services conform to applicable contract quality and quantity requirements. Q.3: Is this a small-business set-aside? A. 3: No, it is unrestricted. Q.4: Please clarify. From my understanding, the contractor is to deliver an agreed upon Digitized Form 990-PF Data. Why does the solicitation state that, "The contractor shall enter and verify all financial source data?" A.4: The contractor shall deliver the Digitized Form 990-PF Data in the file format and delivery method to which the parties agree. The Government is not acquiring transcription services, but the digitized data that the Government subscribes to must be accurate. Verification refers to the processes used by the contractor (key verification, math checking, etc.) to ensure that transcription is accurate. Q.5: What is the quantity of Form 990-PF that are to be Digitized by the contract in a one year period? A.5: Approximately 82,000. Q.6: How many Form 990-PF forms are required be data captured and processed for the IRS in the 30 day period and are there any periodic turn-around schedules? Will there be any additional forms required to be processed after the first 30 days of the contact in the first contract year? If so, how many forms are estimated to be processed on an annual basis? A.6 (a): Most current year data (2004). Since all 2004 returns have not been filed yet, it is expected that the contractor will have the process established to start providing data to the Government within 30 days after award of the contract. A.6 (b), (c): Yes, approximately 82,000. Q.7: What are the digital data field output specifications required by the IRS and is a publication of these specifications available? What are the digital media specifications for the output returned to the IRS? A.7: See under Task Description. The format will be mutually agreed to by the parties after award. Q.8: Are alphabetic fields of data to be converted using upper case characters only or upper and lower case characters? A.8: Alphabetic fields should use upper case characters only. Q.9: Are numeric fields captured with decimal dollar values? A.9: Dollar amount fields should be captured as dollars only. Q.10: What is the unit of measure for proposed pricing (per form, per character)? A.10: Per Year. Q.11: More specifically, is this a new requirement, or is there a current contract in place for the services? If there is a current contract, please provide the following information; contractor (location would be very helpful), contract number, contract type, award and expiration date, and value. A.11: See A.1 above for the contractor's name. A current purchase order is in place. Location is the contractor's site. Purchase order number is TIRNO-04-P-00621. Contract type is fixed price. Award date is 08/26/2004 and expiration date is 08/31/2005. The purchase order award amount is $41,625.00 Q.12: Under DELIVERABLES it states that "The contractor shall deliver the Digitized Form 990-PF Data within thirty days from the date of award." To ensure to be able to deliver the data in thirty days I need to get some indication of how much data (in pages) is involved in this Solicitation? A.12: Approximately 2,000,000 pages Q.13: The RFQ requests "transcribed data from the Forms 990-PF for tax exempt organizations that have filed with the IRS reporting financial activity in calendar year 2003." We interpret this to mean returns filed with fiscal year ending dates between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2003. Is this correct? A.13: Form 990-PF data for the 2003 returns filed with fiscal year ending dates between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2003 plus additional 990-PF data as produced through the end date of the subscription. Q.14: Would you clarify exactly what it is the solicitation is asking for? It talks about the contractor providing a subscription service or license to use the data digitized by the contractor. Will the contractor be hosting the form and collecting the data and then giving it to TE/GE? Also, the Acceptance Criteria talks about conversion of financial source data. What are they referring to? Are you looking for a contractor to host the form, collect the data and provide it back to TE/GE? Or are you looking for a contractor to tag fields on the form, extract that data and give it to TE/GE? A.14: The contractor will not host anything for TE/GE. The Government is acquiring a subscription to use the data. The data will be transferred to IRS as described in the SOW. The database should already exist and IRS is not involved with how the awardee stores the vendors data. Q.14: What is the volume of 990-PF forms? Are we responsible for picking up the forms or will they be shipped to us? If we are responsible can we use a courier like UPS? Is there a record layout? Is there a current vendor doing this work now and if so what is their pricing? Are we to bid by the form, record, keystroke or total yearly costs? A.14: See the responses above: A.1, A.5, A.14, A.7, A.11 and A.10.