Overview
- U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled the IRS unlawfully disclosed last-known taxpayer addresses to ICE in tens of thousands of instances.
- The finding rests on IRS official Dottie Romo’s declaration showing ICE submitted about 1.28 million queries and the IRS provided data on roughly 47,000, often adding address details barred by privacy rules.
- Two days earlier, a D.C. Circuit panel refused to issue a preliminary injunction, saying challengers were unlikely to prevail and characterizing the interagency agreement as a nonbinding policy statement.
- Despite the appeals ruling, separate court orders remain in effect that block large transfers of taxpayer data and prohibit ICE from acting on IRS information already obtained.
- The data-sharing arrangement, signed last April by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, prompted the acting IRS commissioner’s resignation and is the subject of multiple ongoing lawsuits.