The Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are working on an agreement under which the IRS would use the tax data of people suspected of being in the country illegally in order to authenticate names and addresses.
The agreement would allow the IRS to cross-reference names submitted to them by ICE with confidential internal tax data, according to four sources familiar with the agreement who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity.
The agreement, which would allow IRS data to be used to further President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, is controversial due to the fact that personal tax information is confidential information and heavily protected within the IRS.
Normally, sharing internal tax data with external law enforcement agencies requires a court order and is only permissible under specific conditions.
The IRS website states that "under court order, return information may be shared with law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution of non-tax criminal laws."
However, data provided to ICE would be limited to the information of immigrants already facing final removal orders. Furthermore, such information can only be requested by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem or acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.
"It is a complete betrayal of 30 years of the government telling immigrants to file their taxes," one former IRS official said.
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