| (2) be willing to certify that the applicant and the firm with which the applicant is associated will not perform accounting, auditing, management consulting, or tax services for any taxpayer or person that is a subsidiary, parent, or other affiliate of the taxpayer on which the applicant or firm performed a tax compliance examination or special examination project, for a period of 36 consecutive calendar months following the date on which the comptroller's assessment of tax due becomes final, the date when a "no change" examination becomes final, the date when refund or denial of refund becomes final, or the date when the comptroller affirms in writing that the special examination project is complete, whichever date occurs later; (3) be willing to sign a confidentiality contract with the comptroller by which the applicant acknowledges and accepts legal responsibility not to disclose tax information that is obtained pursuant to the contract; (4) not have any unpaid Texas tax liability and be in compliance with Texas revenue laws. This provision applies to any business entity that the applicant owns or controls, or to which the applicant is related, including a parent, subsidiary, or other affiliated entity; (5) comply with the orientation requirements established by the comptroller; (6) comply with all other requirements that are stated in the contract; and (7) not have been excluded from a contract award based on any of the following: (A) knowingly and intentionally supplying false or misleading information in order to appear responsive to the Request for Qualifications; (B) knowingly and intentionally conferring or offering to confer any gift, gratuity, favor, or advantage, present or future, upon any employee of a state agency who exercises any official responsibility for the contract; (C) conviction of any felony charge of fraud, bribery, collusion, conspiracy, federal or state antitrust laws, or other criminal offense in connection with the award of or performance of any contract with any state agency; (D) violation of state ethics laws; (E) subject of a notice of suspension or debarment activities from other governmental entities; or (F) any other cause indicating that the person or accounting firm is not a responsible party to contract with the State of Texas. (d) Orientation. (1) Before any contract examiner may work on contract examinations, the contract examiner must complete, at a minimum, all procedural orientation courses required by the comptroller. (2) The comptroller may determine and specify other required orientation courses that contract examiners must attend to continue working on contract examinations. (3) The selected contract examiner will bear all costs of orientation materials, registration fees, and associated travel expenses and per diem. (e) Contract examiner authority. (1) The contract examiner is authorized to review and examine the accounts, books, or records of any taxpayer whom the comptroller has designated and assigned to the contract examiner for examination under the Contract Examination Program, for the purpose of ascertaining the accuracy of tax obligation. (2) The contract examiner may inspect such books and records as are necessary to ascertain the designated taxpayer's compliance with the revenue laws of this state. The comptroller will issue authorization in writing to the contract examiner, and this authority shall begin on the date on which the comptroller issues the authorization. The authorization shall cease to be effective on the date that the authority is rescinded in writing by the comptroller or the date that the subject contract expires, whichever is earlier. (f) Performance of examination services. Except as otherwise provided in the contract, a contract examiner shall: (1) conduct examinations of taxpayers whom the comptroller designates, in accordance with the procedures, terms, and circumstances stipulated in the contract; (2) use a tax examination work plan that the contract examiner prepares and the comptroller approves for the conduct of assigned examinations. The contract examiner may make recommendations to the comptroller for amending the work plan; (3) conduct an entrance conference and an exit conference; (4) provide the comptroller with the original complete file of work papers that are developed during the tax examination. The examination must contain the revisions necessary to comply with the examination review notes that the comptroller's review staff has prepared; (5) maintain all work papers, examination planning documents, files and other materials associated with the examination in a restricted area of the contract examiner's office. Access to all work papers, examination planning documents, files, and other materials shall be strictly limited to those employees whose duties and responsibilities require them to have access, and who have signed a confidentiality agreement. All documents that the contract examiner receives, maintains, compiles, generates or produces in any way in connection with an examination are documents of the comptroller. (6) Nothing contained in this section authorizes the disclosure of any information that is prohibited by federal or state law from being disclosed. (g) Compensation. (1) Contract examiners shall be compensated based on a percentage of examinations that the comptroller has reviewed and accepted, as specified in the contract. (2) Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize any compensation of contract examiners that is contingent on the amount assessed, the liability revealed, or the refund denied. (h) Confidentiality. (1) Each contract that is negotiated will specifically obligate the selected contract examiner to comply with the applicable state statutes and comptroller rules on confidentiality requirements. Contract examiners will not be provided any tax information on any taxpayer until the examiner signs a contract with the comptroller. (2) Contract examiners and their employees who have access to confidential information are bound by the confidentiality requirements and subject to the penalties for disclosure as provided in the Tax Code. (3) Violations of the confidentiality provisions by contract examiners are punishable as provided by law. (4) Contract examiners shall in no way use or benefit from information of any type that is obtained during the course of a tax examination. (5) Contract examiners who, during the performance of examinations, discover tax information that may be of interest to other taxing jurisdictions shall report such tax information to the comptroller, but shall not report such information to the affected jurisdiction. (i) Performance evaluation. The project manager or the project manager's designee(s) will complete a performance evaluation for each contract under the Contract Examination Program. The contract examiner will be evaluated in the manner specified in the contract. (j) Scope of professional services rendered. Contract examiners' tax examination services will be strictly limited to revenue tax compliance examination functions or special examination projects that the comptroller has approved. Contract examiners will not perform an attestation function and will not render an opinion of any nature. (k) General administrative provisions. Requests for information regarding the comptroller's Contract Audit Program should be directed to Audit Division, Contract Examination Project Manager, P.O. Box 13528, Austin, Texas 78711-3528. |
