A Leon From the IRS Email Scandal: Get Organized by Pete Lorenco

I've always tried to follow the old maxim Never discuss religion or politics in polite company. But whatever your political affiliation, a recent firestorm over emails lost by the IRS provides us with a valuable lesson about the importance of proper records management.

If you haven't followed the scandal, here's a brief recap. In May 2013, IRS staffers were accused of improperly scrutinizing the applications of various conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. As part of their probe into the alleged misconduct, congressional investigators sought emails to and from Lois Lerner, the director of the IRS' exempt organizations unit. The IRS couldn't provide Congress with many of the requested emails, since Lerner's computer had crashed. This led some to accuse Lerner and her team of incompetence-and perhaps even a cover-up.

Another Lesson: Be Prepared

As for your information management affairs, you probably won't have to turn over records to congressional investigators anytime soon. But you could face truly frightening repercussions if you were unable to quickly produce important documents and data related to an audit or a legal discovery involving your business. The best way to avoid these penalties is to work with a trusted information management partner. Its expert team can help you to:

Reduce your risk of noncompliance. Any failure to meet the laws and regulations that govern your industry can be devastating. For example, healthcare companies that don't follow the strict privacy and security requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) face fines of up to $1.5 million.

A trusted partner can guide you through the many requirements of HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and other industry-specific laws. Its team can also tag, index and classify your records for easy access.

Eliminate audit and legal worries. Has the IRS come calling for some records it needs from you? If you can't provide them, good luck trying to use the agency's own information-management issues as a defense of your bad habits. (Besides, it's not just the IRS that can compel you to present paperwork.)

You can avoid hours of lost employee productivity and needless stress by creating a searchable records storage system. An experienced partner can even help you consolidate your paper and electronic records into a single system.

Keep your records safe from all threats. Death and taxes may be certainties, but so are man-made and natural disasters. Part of being organized is ensuring that your records and data-and yes, even your emails-are safe and easily recoverable after a hurricane or computer crash. A disaster plan that features cloud-based data backup can do just that.

Does it say something about Washington's dysfunction that its best lessons for business are about what not to do? Whoops-this is polite company, right?

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2015/uncategorized/lesson-irs-email-scan...
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