IRS: Data Leak Affected Many More Taxpayers Than Previously Said

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Tax officials say details of hundreds of thousands of people were leaked.

Information on more than 400,000 taxpayers was leaked by an IRS contractor, the tax agency said in a newly disclosed letter.

Acting IRS Commissioner Douglas W. O’Donnell wrote in the letter dated Feb. 14 and released to the public on Feb. 25 that Charles Littlejohn โ€œinappropriately disclosedโ€ information on 405,427 taxpayers.

O’Donnell said the number came from a data analysis conducted by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and the IRS.

The IRS previously pegged the number of people whose information was exposed at more than 70,000.

The agency did not respond to a request for comment.

โ€œThe IRSโ€™s admission confirms the Committeeโ€™s suspicion and recent reports that show the scope of the leak was much broader than what the Biden Administrationโ€™s IRS initially led the public to believe,โ€ Republicans on the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee said on the social media platform X.

O’Donnell sent the letter to the committeeโ€™s chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and the panel released it about 10 days later.

Littlejohn was working for an IRS contractor in 2019 and 2020 when he illegally disclosed thousands of federal tax returns and other financial information to news agencies, including then-President Donald Trumpโ€™s information, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Littlejohn pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful disclosure of tax returns and return information.

A judge in 2024 sentenced Littlejohn to five years in prison.

Littlejohn said at his sentencing hearing that he was solely responsible for what he did and that he acted out of a โ€œsincere and misguided beliefโ€ that he was serving the โ€œpublic interestโ€ but โ€œsystematically [violated]โ€ the privacy of thousands of people.

The IRS has said it was partly at fault for the crimes.

โ€œThe IRS takes its responsibilities seriously and acknowledges that it failed to prevent Mr. Littlejohnโ€™s criminal conduct and unlawful disclosure of Mr. Griffinโ€™s confidential data,โ€ the agency said previously in a statement to Kenneth Griffin, one of the individuals whose information was disclosed.

The IRS has said it has improved its data security by targeting weaknesses identified by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration following the discovery of the illegal disclosures.

Byย Zachary Stieber

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