The IRS has disclosed that more than 400,000 businesses and individuals had their tax records illegally accessed and leaked to ProPublica by a former contractor, Charles Littlejohn. The revelation was made Tuesday to the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the breach.
The disclosure follows a Washington Times report detailing how tax records belonging to “hundreds of thousands” of taxpayers were improperly accessed and shared with the nonprofit news organization. Littlejohn, who was convicted for the leak, is currently serving a five-year prison sentence.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, called the data leak “a massive scandal.” According to the IRS, information from 405,427 taxpayers was compromised, with 89% of those records belonging to businesses.
ProPublica has refused to specify the number of tax records it obtained but has described the data as both “a massive trove” and “extremely limited.” The organization used the leaked information in a series of reports examining how much the ultra-wealthy pay in taxes.
In January, Dallas-based security firm Alarm Concepts Inc. filed a lawsuit against the IRS and Booz Allen Hamilton, the contractor that employed Littlejohn, over the breach.
Chairman Jordan is demanding answers from the IRS and Treasury Department over the breach. In a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, he criticized the agency’s failure to prevent former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn from illegally accessing and leaking sensitive taxpayer information.
Jordan accused the IRS of lacking proper security safeguards and requested documents detailing the agency’s handling of the breach, its internal investigations, and measures taken to prevent future leaks. The Judiciary Committee has given the IRS and Treasury until March 5 to respond as lawmakers continue to scrutinize the agency’s data security practices.
Read the letter from the IRS to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan here.
