Additional Coverage:
- Federal judge says the IRS broke the law by sharing confidential data with ICE (marketrealist.com)
Federal Judge Rules IRS Illegally Shared Taxpayer Data with ICE Thousands of Times
A federal judge has delivered a significant blow to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), ruling that the IRS illegally shared confidential taxpayer information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on approximately 42,695 occasions. This decision comes amidst heightened scrutiny of ICE’s actions and raises serious questions about inter-agency data sharing practices.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued the ruling as part of ongoing litigation concerning data exchange between the two federal agencies.
Federal law dictates that any government organization seeking an individual’s taxpayer information must first provide that individual’s name and address. The DHS stands accused of failing to adhere to this crucial requirement in its requests.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly explicitly stated that the vast majority of the nearly 47,300 taxpayer addresses provided by the IRS to the DHS were obtained without the necessary pre-condition being met. “The IRS violated the [Internal Revenue Code] approximately 42,695 times by disclosing last known taxpayer addresses to ICE … without confirming that ICE’s request set forth the ‘address of the taxpayer with respect to whom the requested return information relate[s],’” the judge wrote in her ruling.
Even more troubling, the judge noted that ICE could have submitted requests with vague or nonsensical addresses like “Don’t Care 12345” or “00000” and still received sensitive taxpayer information. This egregious breach of protocol has led to legal action from taxpayer advocates, including Nina Olson, founder of the Center for Taxpayer Rights. Olson remarked, “This confirms what we’ve been saying all along: that the IRS has an unlawful policy that violates the Internal Revenue Code’s protections by releasing these addresses in a way that violates the law’s requirements.”
In its defense, the DHS released a statement asserting that “Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, and identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense.” However, this justification has largely failed to quell public and legal concerns.
Dottie Romo, the chief risk and control officer for the IRS, did not specify when the tax agency became aware of the improper data sharing. However, she indicated in her declaration that the IRS informed the DHS on January 23 of its intent to “prevent the disclosure or dissemination, and to ensure appropriate disposal, of any data provided to ICE by IRS based on incomplete or insufficient address information.” This move suggests an acknowledgment of the issue and a commitment to rectifying past practices.
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- Federal judge says the IRS broke the law by sharing confidential data with ICE (marketrealist.com)