Who Watches What the IRS Watches?

A government report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has revealed that employees of the Internal Revenue Service have inappropriately accessed taxpayer data. The Inspector General argued that the IRS should improve the processes in its audit trials that ensure that it can identify employees who are inappropriately accessing taxpayer information. TIGTA did indicate in its report that the IRS is working at this moment to correct the problems that it has had with this and noted that the IRS could do more in this area.

TIGTA offered several solutions to the IRS, but its officials disagreed to collect more information than it already collects on matters related to the audit trials. Officials at the IRS also disagreed that "validation should be completed before final approval has been granted of audit plans by the IRS's Employee Security Audit Trail (ESAT) office."

See Michael Cohn, Unauthorized IRS Employees Snoop Taxpayer Data, AccountingToday, Nov. 6, 2012.

Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.