An Internal Revenue Service consultant has been charged with disclosing a cache of tax return information without authorization. You can read about the. The charges are not proven, but according to court documents, Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., while working at the IRS as a government contractor, stole tax return information associated with a high-ranking government official and disclosed it to a news organization . The allegations say that Mr.
Littlejohn is charged with one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. This case does not involve one taxpayer or even a manageable number of people.of IRS data on numerous of the wealthiest U.S. taxpayers, covering more than a decade. There were specific income details, their tax liabilities and payments, and more specific data detailing their investments and audit results.
Does the IRS and the rest of the government care about such disclosures? You bet, and federal law is harsh on this subject. Leaks of taxpayer data face strict consequences. Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code requires confidentiality for tax return information. Section 7213 of the tax code sets out the consequences of authorized disclosures of such information. There is a fine of up to $5,000 or five years in prison, or both.
And it has happened before. Back in 2021, a former Treasury Department employee got a six month sentence for leaking certain items to the press—a real drop in the bucket compared to the tax return data the ProPublica received in this case. To be clear, the IRS consultant Mr. Charles Littlejohn, has not been convicted ofthese are just charges, in the form of a criminal information.
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