The Internal Revenue Service has refused to provide data on 700,000 individuals suspected of being in the country illegally.
Department of Homeland Security officials asked the IRS on Thursday to connect the names of potential illegals with data on their last known addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. A similar request was made two weeks before.
The IRS has rejected the requests and is now attempting to negotiate terms that allow it to assist immigration officers without violating tax-privacy laws.
The DHS also asked the IRS to deploy auditors to investigate businesses suspected of hiring illegal immigrants.
According to The Washington Post, “The memo and requests have prompted deep alarm within the IRS, the people said. Providing taxpayer information to third parties is punishable by civil and criminal penalties, and other government entities are forbidden from ordering tax investigations. People familiar with the DHS’s requests described them as ‘Nixonian,’ referring to how President Richard M. Nixon’s administration used the IRS to collect information about perceived enemies. Abuse of the tax system was one of the articles of impeachment filed against Nixon in 1974, though he resigned before impeachment proceeded.”
Millions of illegal immigrants pay billions of dollars in taxes each year. Because the majority of them are ineligible for social-security numbers, the IRS allows them to file their taxes with individual taxpayer numbers, or ITINs, instead.
On its website, the IRS says illegal immigrants “are subject to U.S. taxes in spite of their illegal status.”
IRS databases are considered to be particularly valuable sources about illegal immigrants, because they contain up-to-date information on work[places, names and ages of children and addresses.
Although the IRS hasn’t shared tax information on illegal immigrants in the past, it has worked with the DHS before.
In one notable instance, the IRS and DHS teamed up to investigate a human-smuggling network bringing illegal immigrants to Indiana. The owner of the restaurant pleaded guilty to transporting and harboring undocumented workers and money laundering and was sentenced to time served. He was also ordered to pay a $30,000 fine and forfeit his pickup truck.
