A US federal district judge on Thursday ruled that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) violated the Internal Revenue Code by inappropriately handing thousands of taxpayers’ confidential information over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Title 26 U.S.C. § 6103(i)(2)(B)(i) provides that the IRS Secretary shall furnish returns or return information of a taxpayer, but that the request must state “the name and address of the taxpayer whose return or return information is to be disclosed.” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly found that many of ICE’s requests for information were deficient, especially incomplete address information, yet the IRS still granted the requests.