U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Senate Finance Committee Republicans are seeking an investigation regarding what they deemed an apparent IRS taxpayer information leak.
The lawmakers have forwarded correspondence to Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) Russell George regarding more than 15 years of legally protected, personal taxpayer information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to the media outlet ProPublica.
“ProPublica’s description of the data and the nature of the information published strongly suggests that the information originated from within the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),” the lawmakers wrote. “If this is true, this constitutes a serious breach of privacy and is a criminal violation of our tax laws. It would be one of the most significant and widespread breaches in the agency’s history and considerably damages the foundational bedrock of our tax system, including American taxpayers’ confidence that the IRS will keep their personal information confidential.”
Per the lawmakers, Congress must know the IRS systems are secure and personal individual, and business tax information is secure from threats, both internal and external, to violations of taxpayer privacy rights.
“The American people deserve a thorough, independent investigation into how this information came to be published to understand how and why confidential information is apparently being leaked or obtained from the IRS, to find those responsible and to criminally prosecute where warranted,” the legislators concluded.