Investigation Reveals Unauthorized Access by IRS Employees
An internal investigation has found that some employees of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) improperly accessed the tax records of notable public figures. According to a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), 86 instances of “suspicious access” were detected, involving the records of 30 taxpayers by 52 IRS employees from 2022 to 2025, as of November 2025. Notably, the accessed records included those of government officials, business leaders, and entertainers.
The IRS has not yet responded to inquiries regarding the findings.
The report indicates that the IRS’s program designed to combat unauthorized access (UNAX) is failing to sufficiently mitigate the risks associated with unauthorized access to taxpayer accounts. It highlights several concerns, such as the deficiencies in preventive controls, the agency’s disciplinary processes, and victim notification systems.
It also noted that 22 employees continued to work at the IRS despite their unauthorized access to taxpayer records, where they did so without consent or proper authorization.
Additionally, the report revealed that not all affected taxpayers were informed promptly about unauthorized accesses. Specifically, the IRS failed to notify 175 taxpayers about unauthorized access due to noncompliance with established procedures. In some cases, 101 taxpayers were not informed at all because the employees responsible for the accesses had resigned or retired prior to any potential disciplinary actions.
To address these issues, the TIGTA report proposed eight recommendations for the IRS, which include enhancing system improvements to minimize cases of UNAX, restricting access to certain command codes, and providing clearer guidance on the legal implications of intentional UNAX violations.
In response to an earlier draft of this report, acting IRS Chief Privacy Officer John Walker wrote a memo indicating that the agency either agreed or partially agreed with seven of the recommendations, planning to implement corrective measures by December 2026. However, the IRS disagreed with the recommendation to set specific timeliness standards for notifying impacted taxpayers, citing existing standards that they believe are already in place.
This investigation follows the recent news that former President Donald Trump voluntarily dropped a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury Department. The lawsuit, initiated in January, claimed that the IRS failed to safeguard Trump’s confidential tax records, resulting in damage to his reputation and finances. In relation to this case, former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2024 after pleading not guilty to leaking Trump’s tax records to media outlets.
