Jim Kouri
Law Enforcement Examiner
1/20/2012
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has always received a great deal of personal information about U.S. individuals and businesses with the understanding of confidentiality of such information. However, bit by bit Congress has removed privacy protections and allowed the confidentiality of taxpayers’ personal information to be breached more and more, according to a recent report to Congress.
While taxpayers are required to provide this information to IRS under penalty of fine or imprisonment, confidentiality of information reported to IRS is widely held to be a critical element of taxpayers’ willingness to provide information to IRS and comply with the tax laws.
As a general rule, anything reported to IRS is held in strict confidence — Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 6103 states that federal tax information is confidential and to be used to administer federal tax laws except as otherwise specifically authorized by law {Emphasis added}…
The article continues at the Law Enforcement Examiner.
