Former IRS Agents Accessed Your Most Private Information
Thousands of former IRS employees had access to sensitive taxpayer data after they left the agency.
This is according to a Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration (TIGTA) report published this month.
Former IRS agents might feel tempted to use and abuse this system to hurt political enemies.
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Last year, the IRS reduced the size of its workforce through the Deferred Resignation Program and the Treasury Deferred Resignation Program. These programs allowed employees to resign and go on administrative leave until September of last year.
“In July 2025, we reported that 21,646 employees had taken a deferred resignation,” the report said.
“Since these employees were on administrative leave, they no longer had a business reason for retaining access to the IRS’s network or sensitive systems.”
Nevertheless, 17,000 of those nearly 22,000 former employees could still access sensitive IRS computer systems.
“These employees did not have a legitimate business reason to retain this access and posed a potential security risk for unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information,” the report said.
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The evaluation was done after an IRS contractor accessed a database to collect tax return information on a high-ranking government official and thousands of the nation’s wealthiest individuals. Their data was uploaded to a private website to avoid detection and then shared with media organizations.
The former contractor, the TIGTA report said, was later caught and sentenced to five years in prison.
As reported several times, IRS agents don’t always have the best reputation for integrity. They can and have done tremendous harm with other people’s private information.
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During the 2010s, the IRS apologized for mistreating Tea Party groups. Many people believe that, were it not for this interference, former Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney might have had a more viable chance of defeating former Democratic President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. That’s because Tea Party groups were too tied up fighting audits when they could have spent that time canvassing for votes to vote Obama out of office.
Warhammer is a journalist with more than 20 years or professional experience. Follow Warhammer on X @Real_Warhammer.
