IRS admits sharing taxpayer data with ICE

The Internal Revenue Service has acknowledged in a court filing that it is now sharing taxpayer data with the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit as part of the Trump administration's deportation push.

This marks the first time the IRS has acknowledged it's sharing the information, Quartz reported. 

"In previous filings and hearings on this matter, the United States informed this Court that the IRS had neither received any request nor released any information to ICE under the terms of the MOU between DHS and Treasury dated April 7, 2025," said the notice filed August 12. "Since then, the IRS responded to requests for return information made by ICE pursuant to the MOU. The IRS did so only as consistent with the MOU and 26 U.S.C. § 6103(i)(2)." 

The IRS and the Treasury Department signed a memorandum of understanding in April with DHS and ICE setting out the conditions under which confidential taxpayer information would be shared. A lawsuit was filed by Public Citizen in March on behalf of immigration rights groups seeking to stop the sharing of the taxpayer information and the latest court filing came in that case, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Scott Bessent, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Treasury, et al.

A dispute over the parameters for sharing such confidential information was reportedly one of the factors behind the ouster of IRS Commissioner Billy Long last week by Bessent, along with other tensions, according to the Washington Post. Long will instead be nominated as ambassador to Iceland by President Trump. Bessent is now filling in as acting commissioner, making him the seventh IRS commissioner or acting commissioner so far this year.

"It's deeply concerning that a Senate-confirmed IRS commissioner may have been let go because he resisted pressure to violate legal protections on taxpayer privacy," said Public Citizen attorney Nandan Joshi in a statement Tuesday. "The IRS cannot lawfully share tax credit information with ICE without a court order, no matter how much political pressure the IRS commissioner faces."

On Thursday, in a separate case, a federal judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to stop sharing information on Medicaid enrollees with deportation officials.