U.S. Department of the Treasury 

Public Law 115-336, “21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act” 

December 2023 Report 

Prepared for the Office of Management and Budget and the public per the requirements 

of section 3(d) of Public Law 115-336. 

Authorized Use Only
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Progress to Implement the 

21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act 

2023 Annual Report 

Background 

Section 3(d) of the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (21st Century IDEA) requires 

the head of each federal executive branch agency to report annually (through 2023) to the Director 

of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the public on the agency’s progress to 

implement the requirements of the Act, and modernize their websites and digital services. The 

information below details our efforts to modernize our websites and digital services in 2023. 

Efforts to Date 

Building on the work Treasury began in 2019 and accomplished through 2022, 2023’s focus has 

been to continue with modernizing and improving our websites using Department-wide shared 

services; delivering a digital-first public experience with Treasury services and forms automation; 

and improving the customer experience through engagement and service delivery. Treasury 

continues to leverage 21st Century IDEA initiatives to streamline our digital footprint to better 

serve the American public. 

Major accomplishments for 2023 include ongoing expansion of portfolio of hosted websites as a 

shared service provider, improving employee experience by upgrading internal and legacy 

websites, leveraging analytics through customer outreach to measure engagement, and 

collaborating across Treasury bureaus, communities of practice, and the Whitehouse to improve 

customer experience. 

Accomplishment #1: Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience 

In 2023, Treasury prioritized expansion of online services and took measures to enhance these 

solutions to better serve the American public. From expanding the enterprise content 

management system (CMS) shared service to improving accessibility and adding chatbot 

functionality, Treasury is committed to delivering a digital-first public experience. 

• Treasury Departmental (Headquarters) Offices (DO), offers the Acquia/Drupal CMS, 

combined with Akamai Content Delivery Network (CDN) as a shared service to host, publish 

and protect Treasury public-facing federal websites. The enterprise CMS offering provides 

reusable design themes and feature modules, applying U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) 

compliance standards and industry best practices for content management and security to 

help Treasury provide mission-critical information and services on their public-facing websites. 

To date, Treasury hosts a total of 14 public facing websites across four bureaus including five 

special offices (e.g., https://www.cdfifund.gov). In FY2024, Treasury will continue to expand 

the enterprise CMS to host three additional websites. 

• The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is committed to delivering a digital-first public experience 

via its IRS.gov website. IRS.gov is constantly updated with the most current tax information, 

Page 1 of 5 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

guidance, instructions, forms, and documents. The IRS maintains translations for thousands 

of its most heavily used pages, in seven different non-English languages. In addition, the IRS 

continues to focus on making additional digital tools and services available to taxpayers as 

defined by the Internal Revenue Service Inflation Reduction Act Strategic Operating Plan 

Objective 1. The IRS offers several online account options for individuals, business, and tax 

professionals, and is regularly adding features and functionality. Over the past year, IRS 

released features include expansion of payment plans, enhanced notifications, Income 

Verification Express Service (IVES) authorization approvals, and integration of secure twoway messaging. IRS added chatbot functionality and introduced several new notices to online 

availability. The IRS expanded secure messaging opportunities for several taxpayer segments 

including Appeals, Large Business and International, Small Business/Self-Employed, and Tax 

Exempt & Government Entities. Continued expansion for secure messaging installations is 

planned through FY25. 

• The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) launched the myTTB authorization 

service in March 2023 and the Craft Beverage Modernization Act (CBMA) Import Claims 

service in April 2023. The authorization service is a foundational element that is used across 

myTTB services and allows customers to directly manage permissions for their other users. 

The new services reside on the myTTB platform, which utilizes the TTB Design System (based 

on the U.S. Web Design System) to ensure it is responsive to mobile devices, Section 508 

compliant, and provides a consistent look and feel across new TTB websites and services. 

Accomplishment #2: Improving Internal-Facing Digital Services 

Treasury is focused on improvements to internal-facing websites and digital services that can 

increase efficiency of government operations. Such gains in efficiencies will enable employees to 

better deliver information and services to the public. Treasury updated and improved internal 

services throughout FY23 enabling Treasury employees to better serve their customers. 

• DO continues to enhance their intranet, ensuring it is reliable and user-centered to integrate 

with day-to-day business applications. The intranet was successful migrated to the Treasury 

Enterprise Azure Platform Services in the Microsoft Government Cloud. This migration 

improved the intranet response time and now has uninterrupted business continuity as there 

are no more service disruptions for annual data center maintenance. 

• “In$ite”, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) intranet site was upgraded from 

SharePoint 2013 to SharePoint Online. This upgrade allows users to have greater control of 

their sites, while the hubs allow a synchronization across related sites, resulting in a standard 

experience and better search capability. 

• The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) migrated legacy workflow products to 

Microsoft 365 Dynamics. This provides an improved experience, seamlessly integrating the 

workflow tool with other Microsoft products, and providing a suite of tools that enables FinCEN 

to automate workflow processes, analyze data, build specific data processing workflows, and 

implement investigative and enforcement activity apps. 

• The United States Mint (Mint) used SharePoint Online, to modernize their intranet. The 

“Mintranet”, provides a cleaner look and was reorganized so that content that is most 

accessed is easier to find and offers a consistent appearance. 

Page 2 of 5 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• In 2023, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) kicked off an intranet redesign 

to improve how employees can find information they need to do their job. OCC onboarded 

search engine experts to improve the intranet search results. 

Accomplishment #3: Modernizing Legacy Websites and Services 

Efforts continue in legacy modernization through expansion of features offered to the public. 

These improvements have increased efficiency and reduced administrative costs. 

• DO launched the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) website in April 2023 as a separate 

but related site to treasury.gov. OFAC’s treasury.gov content, which deals with the sanctions 

programs, is among the most visited content on treasury.gov with a broad audience. This 

content was a natural candidate for user-centered enhancements. It was redesigned to be 

more user-friendly with content organization based on a combination of site visit analytics, 

user feedback, and OFAC helpdesk data. The new site includes enhanced searching and 

sorting capabilities for recent actions and OFAC’s vast collection of questions and answers. 

• Through the IRS's continued focus on providing an accessible user experience for all 

taxpayers, the IRS has been deploying additional functionality to its online systems, most 

prominently with the iterations of Online Accounts (individual, business, tax professional). 

These applications meet accessibility requirements for online tools and services. The IRS 

ensures its applications are developed using the Online Design Guide and design standards, 

in alignment with the USWDS, to ensure consistency across the IRS.gov application domain. 

Additionally, IRS committed to optimizing IRS.gov search results. In 2023, IRS analyzed the 

top 400 search terms on IRS.gov site search, leading to adjustments on 94 target pages. This 

resulted in a 36% improvement in relevancy of search results impacting around 1.5M 

searches/year. 

• FinCEN continues to redesign content areas on www.fincen.gov to make the site more 

intuitive and user-friendly. The FinCEN Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) content area 

was significantly updated to assist the public with more easily finding and understanding BOI 

information and filing requirements while still working to provide a consistent overall site 

design. 

• In 2023, TTB automated the issuances of export certificates to U.S. exporters as a service to 

industry members when foreign markets require certificates as a condition for products to 

enter their countries. In so doing, TTB vastly reduced the time and expense required for U.S. 

alcohol exporters to obtain export certificates and minimized the bureau’s administrative 

burden. 

Accomplishment #4: Measuring Customer Engagement and Service Delivery 

Monitoring engagement through analytics tools, surveys, focus groups, and customer feedback 

allows Treasury to identify areas for improvements. Treasury remains focused on delivering an 

optimal experience to the American public as they utilize our services. 

• BEP has implemented two tools for internal and external customer engagement analytics, first 

Google Analytics was implemented for bep.gov, and second SharePoint Online's built-in 

analytics capabilities were implemented for In$ite. These analytics have allowed BEP to 

enhance the page promotion strategy for users based on employee engagement. 

• Fiscal Service uses surveys on all its major websites, monitors responses and tracks customer 

Page 3 of 5 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

emails and phone calls to their contact centers to understand customer needs and 

expectations. Fiscal Service measures success over time by monitoring scores and 

comments from site surveys, analyzes web traffic using Google analytics to validate consistent 

experience, and reviews contact center data to ensure accessibility of data on the site. 

• IRS Online Services (OLS) leverages customer feedback, focus groups, and other information 

resources to determine how best to structure the IRS.gov site and the content within. For 

example, card sorts help IRS discern how taxpayers think about and group tax-related 

information, while user testing gives insight into how customers navigate and utilize IRS.gov. 

Additionally, OLS relies on site surveys and user behavior metrics through Google Analytics 

(GA4 and Google Tag Manager) to make and assess targeted improvements to site 

navigation, structure, and content. IRS has fully integrated a customer feedback survey tool 

(Medallia) into IRS.gov as well as several online applications. OLS regularly conducts targeted 

research efforts to identify user preferences, needs and expectations for online account 

features to inform continued enhancement of IRS digital services. 

• As a part of Mint’s continuous website improvement, CrazyEggs, a website interaction tool 

was utilized. The tool uses heat maps and in-time snapshots to capture user interactions with 

the site. Reports are generated and reviewed. This information allows the Mint to pinpoint 

elements within the page and what portions of the layout most users are interacting with which 

can either show a positive interaction or frustration. Qualtrics is an experience management 

tool acquired in 2023 which allows the Mint to formulate survey questions based on data. With 

the implementation of Qualtrics, the Mint can now measure customer engagement. This 

information will be used to inform changes to the homepage layout and functionality updates. 

• OCC deployed Google Analytics and continues to use SiteImprove and CrazyEggs for site 

quality assurance. OCC uses these products to monitor user trends, identify and correct 

operational quality issues, and as input to their content and digital service design strategy. In 

2023, OCC piloted the use of Touchpoints for collecting customer feedback and the use of 

api.data.gov for securing and sharing OCC’s public API data sets. Full implementation of 

Touchpoints and api.data.gov is expected in 2024. 

Accomplishment #5: Customer Experience Collaboration 

Fostering a collaborative environment across Treasury bureaus promotes a unified approach in 

our service delivery. Through knowledge sharing, Treasury can coordinate efforts in providing 

exceptional customer service by learning how each bureau interacts with the public. 

• In 2023, Treasury established a department-wide customer experience (CX) vision – Earning 

your trust through reliable, exceptional service – which provides a foundation for Treasury to 

implement customer experience practices throughout the Department. Additionally, the 

Treasury CX Community of Practice (COP) continues to meet quarterly to bring together CX 

leaders and practitioners from across the Department to share CX best practices. The CX 

COP is being led by the IRS Taxpayer Experience Office further demonstrating crossdepartmental collaboration. 

• DO started a quarterly bureau community of practice for administrators using the email 

subscription service (GovDelivery). These sessions resulted in bureau members exploring 

new ways to engage and assist the public using this service on some major initiatives in both 

the short and long-term. 

Page 4 of 5 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_______________________ 

• Implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) clean energy credits was achieved 

through a collaboration between IRS, DO and the Department of Energy. A cross-agency 

team rapidly analyzed the law and implemented consistent, understandable, and actionable 

guidance to the public that was coherent across government websites under tight deadlines. 

The web content was worked and implemented in an iterative manner and post-deployment 

analytics indicated overwhelmingly that the public was consuming and acting on the content 

as expected. 

• Conversations with other government agencies have led to specific design improvements for 

the myTTB authorization model that provides more flexibility for TTB and their customers. 

TTB has also engaged with the General Services Administration’s Centers of Excellence to 

help mature CX practices at TTB and sequence myTTB modernization work. 

Implementation Challenges 

Treasury’s greatest challenges in implementing the 21st Century IDEA initiatives continue to be 

funding and resource prioritization. Sustainment of support and coordination of resources is 

essential to ensuring our digital services and websites align with 21st Century IDEA. In 

addition, the September 2023 issuance of M-23-22: Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience 

requires increased attention on continuous improvements and new reporting requirements. 

Competing priorities, including addressing cyber-related mandates and implementing new 

jurisdictional responsibilities and programmatic initiatives, require ongoing tradeoffs across 

programs and projects, including planned modernization efforts. Ensuring that systems are 

modernized, and enhancements are deployed is also a massive undertaking. The IRS serves 

more taxpayers, businesses, non-profits and other entities than all other federal agencies. 

Limited resources compiled with increasing costs has led to a backlog of needs, such as 

infrastructure upgrades, that must be addressed. 

Conclusion 

Treasury’s commitment to 21st Century IDEA adoption remains steadfast. Modernizing 

Treasury operations plays an integral part in the 2022-2026 Treasury Strategic Plan, 

highlighting Treasury’s pledge to work hard to deliver an improved digital experience to the 

American public. The agency aims to balance modernization initiatives with ongoing 

cybersecurity and legislative responsibilities. Our focus will continue on applying 21st Century 

IDEA in alignment with the Treasury Strategic Plan, President’s Management Agenda and M23-22: Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience. 

/s/ Tony Arcadi 

Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Systems and Chief Information Officer 

Page 5 of 5