A deal is reportedly underway for the Internal Revenue Service to share tax data, including addresses, of illegal aliens with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the deal has been the subject of “weeks of negotiations,” citing four unnamed “people familiar with the matter.”
The newspaper also obtained leaked portions of a draft of the agreement.
The Post reports:
Under the agreement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement could submit names and addresses of suspected undocumented immigrants to the IRS to cross-reference with confidential taxpayer databases, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of professional reprisals.
Normally, personal tax information — even an individual’s name and address — is considered confidential and closely guarded within the IRS. Unlawfully disclosing tax data carries civil and criminal penalties.
However, tax information may be shared with other federal law enforcement under certain, limited conditions — and typically with approval from a court. It would be unusual, if not unprecedented, for taxpayer privacy law exceptions to be used to justify cooperation with immigration enforcement, the people said.
According to the draft, the data sharing would be limited to “confirming the addresses of known unlawful immigrants who already have been ordered to leave the country.” Additionally, the IRS will only comply with requests submitted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem or Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons directly.
The requests “must include the name and address of each taxpayer, the date of their order for removal and other identifying information that would allow the IRS to verify the taxpayer’s identity,” per the report.
In 1999, the IRS promised illegal aliens that it would not share their data with immigration officials while encouraging them to use the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) program, which had been established three years earlier. It was part of an effort to encourage tax compliance among those not eligible for Social Security numbers, including illegal aliens.
It is estimated that only about 50 percent of illegal aliens are paying taxes to the IRS.
