October 29, 1999
Web posted at: 6:03 p.m. EDT (2203 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sixty-three days prior to the year 2000, an Internal Revenue Service official Friday reassured Congress the agency would be ready for problems caused by the Y2K computer bug.

Paul Cosgrave, chief information officer for the IRS, told a House panel that the tax collection agency does not anticipate any major failure of its computer systems due to the Y2K bug.

However, he said that in the "highly unlikely" event that systems do fail, the IRS has backup systems in place.

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The Y2K software glitch has led the IRS to replace some major computer systems, Cosgrave said. Without those changes, "We literally would not have been able to process tax returns.

Cosgrave's testimony came two weeks after IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti wrote to Congress, indicating that a discrepancy in inventories of IRS computers could pose a risk in checking for potential Y2K problems.

Asked about the letter, Cosgrave acknowledged that the IRS has had problems in tracking the estimated 800,000 items in its computer inventory because of the agency's "highly decentralized" nature.

But he told the House panel that the IRS expects to complete a "wall-to-wall" inventory by the end of the year and is already "over the 90 percent level."

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