If you have a better way to ensure knowledge based authentication continuity for all online IRS transactions until they switch providers, I'd love to hear it.

Here's one: don't do KBA, since that is an open door to fraud.

How about mandatory 2FA rfid token implants, then we can put this SSN business behind us.

You can't really mandate implants. Well, you could but that's how you get open revolution in the streets.

Luckily we already have 2fa implants. They're called retinas or fingerprints, to be used in conjunction with passwords.

What you have, what you know, what you are. Those are the three factors. Passwords and fingerprints are two of them.

No actually those don't work for the same reason that SSNs don't work.

You need the ability to change out your password or 2fa if it gets compromised. You can't change your fingerprints or retinas.

Then I don't think you understand the various "factors" of security. I'd advise you to re-read the last line of my post that you replied to where I explained them. "What you are" is a completely valid factor for 2fa, when combined with either "what you have" (a token) or "what you know" (a password).

People need to stop complaining about biometric security if they don't understand the basic concepts of security in the first place. Re-read my first post and this one, and if you're still confused, look into factors of security. Hopefully you can stop parroting this nonsense that fingerprints are not a valid factor in 2fa.

I'm not sure I'd generally refer to those as implants, but point taken.

The IRS could just do automatic tax filing and we'd only file if we'd want to have them take something in account that they haven't. They already have all of this data, but companies that file taxes actively bribe congress.

The first step would be open bidding to determine who is able to provide what.

That's not how business continuity works. You don't just pull the plug on your vendor when its a critical component of your business (or in this case, a public service).

What are you going to do if you have a dispute with your payment processor? Just stop processing payments while you switch providers? Its like no one here has run a legitimate business before.

I think a dispute with a payment processor is an issue on a little different scale than the leak of every American's credit history and PII.

Regardless of what the options are, it's a colossal PR misstep that deserved a much more thorough explanation from the IRS than "they're the only ones who can provide this service that we can't readily explain".