The IRS broke the law by disclosing confidential information to ICE 42,695 times, judge says
WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS broke the law by disclosing confidential taxpayer information to Immigration and Customs Enforcement “approximately 42,695 times,” a federal judge said Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly found that the IRS mistakenly shared thousands of people’s taxpayer information with the Department of Homeland Security.
That finding was based on an affidavit filed earlier this month by Dottie Romo, the IRS’s chief of risk and controls, revealing that the IRS provided DHS with information on 47,000 of the 1.28 million people ICE requested, and in many of those cases gave ICE additional address information, violating privacy rules established to protect taxpayer data.
In Thursday’s ruling, Kollar-Kotelly said the agency violated IRS Code 6103, one of the strictest privacy laws in federal law, “approximately 42,695 times by disclosing most recent taxpayer addresses to ICE.” He called the Romo declaration “an important development in this situation.”
“Not only did the IRS fail to ensure that ICE’s request for confidential taxpayer address information met legal requirements, but this failure also led the IRS to disclose confidential taxpayer addresses to ICE in circumstances where ICE’s request for such information was clearly inadequate.” he wrote.
The government is appealing the case, but Thursday’s ruling is significant because Romo’s affidavit supports the appeal decision.
“This confirms what we have said all along: The IRS has an unlawful policy of violating the protections of the Internal Revenue Code by publishing these addresses in violation of the requirements of the law,” said Nina Olson, founder of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, which sued the government over the disclosure.
Representatives for the IRS and Treasury Department did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
A. data sharing agreement signed last April The legislation, drafted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, allows ICE to submit the names and addresses of immigrants in the U.S. illegally to the IRS for cross-verification with tax records. The agreement led to the resignation of the then-IRS commissioner.
There are several ongoing lawsuits challenging the IRS-DHS agreement.
Earlier this week, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit refused to grant injunction for the immigrant rights group Centro de Trabajadores Unidos and other nonprofits that sued the federal government to halt implementation of the agreement.
In denying the request for a preliminary injunction, Judge Harry T. Edwards wrote that the nonprofit groups “are unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims” because the information the agencies share is not covered by the IRS privacy law.
Still, two separate court rulings prevented agencies from transferring large amounts of taxpayer information and preventing ICE from acting on IRS data in its possession. This preliminary measure is still in effect.
