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by Harry Rabb, C.P.A.
Special to Tropical Breeze
Despite repeated warnings by IRS officials
over many years, IRS employees still are getting nabbed for
snooping through confidential taxpayer records without
authorization. In some cases, IRS workers were curious about an
ex-spouse or neighbor, but in at least one case, an employee was
paid by an outsider for information that was used by identity
thieves. According to interviews with Treasury officials and a new
report, hundreds of IRS workers were disciplined in the year ended
Sept. 30 for breaking the rules, and some have even faced
prosecution.
Illegal browsing has long been a problem
at the IRS, even after Congress enacted tough taxpayer-privacy
legislation in the late 1990s. Government officials and lawmakers
take the issue seriously since the confidentiality of taxpayer
records is considered a bedrock principle of the U.S. tax system.
Snooping has persisted even though IRS officials frequently warn
workers in strong terms not to tap into the agency's computers to
look at confidential taxpayer information without an official
tax-administration purpose.
Although the number of browsing cases is
tiny compared with the IRS's overall work force, the number went
up in the latest year. Officials at the Treasury Inspector General
for Tax Administration, or TIGTA, say they opened 521
investigations in fiscal 2007, up from 448 the prior year -- and
the highest since a 1998 taxpayer-privacy law was enacted.
During the latest year, there were 219
"adverse administrative actions" against IRS workers, including
firings and suspensions, a TIGTA official says. That's up sharply
from 104 such actions the prior year. In each year, there also were
"successful prosecutions" in 25 cases.
Over the past decade, Treasury
investigators have opened more than 4,700 investigations. As a
result, there have been 1,205 cases in which workers have been
disciplined, and there have been 176 "successful prosecutions."
So why do IRS workers risk their careers
-- and possible prosecution -- for a peek at someone else's
confidential tax data?
The reasons are varied, investigators say.
Some IRS workers were caught peeping at tax records of an
ex-spouse, a neighbor, someone with whom they're having an affair
or a celebrity. But in some cases, the motives are more
complex.
One case involved Josa'lyn Johnson, who
worked as a tax-examining clerk at the IRS' Philadelphia Service
Center. The government said she disclosed confidential information,
such as Social Security numbers, birth dates and bank-account
information of at least 24 individuals to someone outside the IRS
-- and was paid about $1,500 for the information.
She entered a guilty plea last summer to
unauthorized disclosure of tax-return information and exceeding
authorized access of a government computer, said her lawyer,
Michael Engle. Her sentence included three years' probation, a
$1,000 fine and a $200 special assessment.
In another case, an IRS employee accessed
tax-return information about the ex-husband of an individual with
whom the man had a "personal relationship," the TIGTA report said.
The result: The man was sentenced to probation for two years and
ordered to participate in mental-health treatment.
The IRS says that taxpayer privacy is "a
high priority" and that the agency "does not tolerate unauthorized
employee browsing" and recently improved its detection systems.
Unauthorized-access investigations during 2007 "involved less than
1 percent" of employees with computer access to taxpayer return
information. The IRS is continuing to explore ways to reduce the
number of violations.
While browsing offenses have grown, they
aren't the only type of cases that worry law-enforcement
authorities. Recently, former IRS agent Robert Rosner was charged
in an indictment with soliciting a bribe from a taxpayer. The
indictment alleges that Rosner, while working for the IRS,
contacted the head of a small business in New York to discuss an
audit.
Rosner asked the victim to treat him to
lunch, which the victim did. Over lunch, Rosner told the victim he
would terminate the IRS audit of the company if he was paid $5,000.
"The victim agreed to pay the bribe," the indictment says, and
Rosner later told the victim he had closed the audit. Attempts to
reach Rosner and his lawyer weren't successful.
Cases in which an IRS agent asks for a
bribe from a taxpayer are "very rare," said Timothy Camus, TIGTA's
assistant inspector general for investigations. "Any taxpayer who
believes that an IRS employee has attempted to extort something
from them is encouraged to contact TIGTA," Camus said. Use TIGTA's
website www.tigta.gov or call 1-800-366-4484. As always, I
recommend that you consult a competent professional before dealing
with the IRS on complicated tax issues.
• • •
This information is provided as a public
service and should not be construed as individual accounting or tax
planning advice. For information on how these general principles
apply to your situation, please consult an accounting or tax
professional.
Harry Rabb is a C.P.A. and owner of
Accounting Services, Inc., 935 Main Street, Suite D-1, Safety
Harbor. Call 727-725-4121.
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