United States Senators’ Letter to the IRS
We request an update on what steps you are taking to address the serious shortcomings of IRS data security systems and practices, and on the developments involving the recent disclosures of legally protected information.
On October 12, 2023 an IRS contractor working at the IRS, Charles Edward Littlejohn, pled guilty to the unauthorized disclosure of protected, confidential taxpayer information. This included two instances of disclosing tax information of a high-profile public official, as well as tax returns and return information for “thousands” of targeted taxpayers. These disclosures were widely reported to be the basis behind dozens of articles published by ProPublica since June 2021 that contain confidential taxpayer information.