Description
Subject to final approval, The Internal Revenue Service, National Office of Procurement, intends to negotiate a sole-source procurement, in accordance with FAR 6.302-1, to Bloomberg Financial L.P., 731 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10022 for three (3) Bloomberg Professional Service subscriptions, for a base and four (4) option years each. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTATION. Bloomberg Professional is a subscription to access Bloomberg’s repository of financial data on its internet site. Pursuant to the subscription, Bloomberg Professional provides access to real time and historical market data for Equities, Futures, Options, Fixed Income and Currency Markets, historical dividend information, over the counter pricing from leading brokers, pricing data for oil and gas markets, financial data about foreign corporations and foreign stock prices, calculators to help price commodity swaps and options, credit default swap fundamentals and pricing, forward curve analytics, tools for calculating yield, spread, option-adjusted spread and total return, global foreign currency news, and other financial data and tools. The Bloomberg Professional service is access to an online data suppository; therefore, deliverables include data queries including stock and bond issuance and pricing details, derivative values, derivative pricing models, foreign currency rates, market prices for securities traded outside of U.S. markets, and a mechanism to download financial data into Excel. In support of the IRS’s Fiscal Year 2010 Strategic Plan, IRS Field Specialists is committed to improving tax compliance, enhancing our ability to develop solutions for international compliance, and capitalizing on technology to improve our performance. Bloomberg is the financial service used by many of our taxpayers and is the most comprehensive financial service available. Bloomberg is the only service that will provide access to a full range of global financial data. Such data is crucial to Financial Product (FP) Specialists in the examination of complex financial product transactions. Access to Bloomberg’s global suite of global financial data and pricing tools will assist FP Specialists to check taxpayers’ pricing of sophisticated financial instruments and to target areas of compliance risk. Further, because many of the larger taxpayers FP Specialists examine price their financial products based on data in Bloomberg, FP Specialists need access to the same data upon which taxpayers may have relied. A sole source is intended for this order; no other source is known that is fully capable and available to provide the required services. Interested respondents shall demonstrate the capability to provide the same level of service, including user training, in a manner as cost effective as procuring services with Bloomberg. IRS will consider all affirmative responses received no later than 10 days after publication of this notice. Affirmative responses shall be accompanied by sufficient documentation to clearly show how it would be advantageous to the Government to switch providers for this requirement (i.e. software costs, training for employees, contingencies, and professional environment). A request for more information will not be considered an affirmative response. No solicitation document is available. If no affirmative written response is received that clearly demonstrates the ability to meet all the requirements, and that it is more advantageous to the Government, the IRS intends to negotiate a sole-source award to Bloomberg Financial L.P. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The intended period of performance for this requirement is 12 months from the date of award, plus four (4) option years.