The IRS broke the law “approximately 42,695 times” by sharing taxpayers’ addresses with ICE, a federal judge said Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the Internal Revenue Code requires that information be kept secret, with only limited exceptions. But she said the IRS, in a notice to the court earlier this month, acknowledged it disclosed information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside of those exceptions.
The IRS could have been allowed to disclose a last known address if ICE had already provided an address for each person. But the IRS disclosed the addresses even in cases where ICE didn’t supply an address but did provide a taxpayer number, such as a Social Security number.
“Accordingly, the IRS violated the IRC approximately 42,695 times by disclosing last known taxpayer addresses to ICE,” the judge wrote.
The data-sharing is part of a controversial agreement between the immigration agency and the tax agency.
Previously, the IRS had jealously guarded its information under the belief that getting Uncle Sam his money was too important to taint.
Democrats seized on the new ruling as evidence of Trump overreach.
Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, said it’s also led to errors.
“There’s a strong likelihood this system has made mistakes, misidentified taxpayers, and sent ICE to hunt down innocent people who are now sitting in concentration camps or worse,” he said, presumably referring to ICE’s detention centers, which are similar to — and often operate at — local jails.
Mr. Wyden called on the administration to revoke the data-sharing agreement and warned those who were involved in the effort to be “ready for the criminal investigations and lawsuits headed their way sooner or later.”
The goal of the operation was to try to track down noncitizens who had been ordered deported but were refusing to go.
ICE had sent requests for information on 1.28 million people and was supposed to provide first and last names, taxpayer numbers, the date of the deportation order and an address.
The IRS then checked to make sure all the data was there, then provided its own last known address.
In the court disclosure earlier this month, the IRS said 2.6% of the inquiries were rejected because data was missing.
The IRS ended up providing 47,289 addresses.
The IRS matched most of those cases using the taxpayer number rather than an address, which is where Judge Kollar-Kotelly said things went wrong.
IRS Chief Risk and Control Officer Dottie Romo said ICE has agreed to set aside the information for now. She said the IRS learned of the problem late last month and went to ICE immediately.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly wondered why it then took the IRS until Feb. 11 to notify the court — and the plaintiffs who’d challenged the sharing.
She said that could show “bad faith” on the part of the Trump administration — which could give the plaintiffs a chance at legal discovery that could shine a light on how the address-sharing practice came about and how it’s operated.
But she put off that decision until later.
Her opinion comes even though the case has already been appealed. She was asked to offer what’s known as an “indicative ruling” telling the appeals court what she would do if the case were returned to her in a particular posture.
The appeals court ruled earlier this week that the data sharing could continue while the case is proceeding.
