IRS tracked taxpayers' political
affiliation
The News Tribune
January 6, 2006
WASHINGTON – As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue
Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers
in 20 states.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with
jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an "outrageous violation of
the public trust" that could undermine the agency's credibility.
IRS officials acknowledged that party affiliation information was routinely
collected by a vendor for several months. They told the vendor last month to
screen the information out.
"The bottom line is that we have never used this information," said John
Lipold, an IRS spokesman. "There are strict laws in place that forbid it."
Washington state residents do not express a party preference when they
register to vote. Residents of 20 other states and the District of Columbia
have to provide a party affiliation when registering. Voter registration
information is publicly available.
Murray said she learned about the problem from the president of the National
Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelly. The IRS is part of the Treasury
Department.
"This agency should not have that type of information," Murray said in a
telephone interview from Seattle. "No one should question whether they are
being audited because of party affiliation."
Kelly said Thursday that several IRS employees had complained to the union
about the practice. She said IRS officials weren't even aware of it until she
wrote them in late December.
In a letter to Kelly, Deputy IRS Commissioner John Dalrymple said the party
identification information was automatically collected through a "database
platform" supplied by an outside contractor that targeted voter registration
rolls among other things as it searched for people who aren't paying their
taxes.
"This information is appropriately used to locate information on taxpayers
whose accounts are delinquent," he said.
Murray and Kelly, however, remained skeptical. Kelly said the collection of
such data was even more troubling because the IRS intends to start using
private collection agencies later this year to go after back taxes.
"We think Congress should suspend IRS plans to use private collections
agencies until these questions have been resolved," she said.
According to Murray's office, the 20 states in which the IRS collected party
affiliation information were Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware,
Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York,
North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and
Wisconsin.
Les Blumenthal: 202-383-0008
lblumenthal@mcclatchydc.com
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