So apparently the IRS decided not to renew that company's contract to back up their emails, just weeks after Lerner's hard drive crashed... and just weeks before other crashes of drives of involved parties.
So the first question is, what does Sonasoft have? Were they obligated to destroy, or to retain, the records that the IRS had already paid for them to store?
The second question is, did the IRS decide to go with a different firm -- or to stop backing up its emails?
Probably just another coincidence. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe NPH ran across a comment somewhere claiming there's a federal penalty of minimum 5 years for each document that can't be produced. That almost sounds too good to be true. I haven't bothered running it down.
A third question, unrelated to Sonasoft, is where are the paper copies?
ReplyDeleteFrom the IRS' own rules, which cite Treasury rules:
If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy.
Eric Hines