Report on ICE Data Sharing Case Undercuts IRS Stance, Group Says

A new watchdog report on the IRS’s handing of a data-sharing agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement undercuts the tax agency’s arguments in court, a new filing by a group suing over the issue said.

Democracy Forward, which represents the Center for Taxpayer Rights in a case against the IRS, said the report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration shows more information in support of the group’s case. The document was filed with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Tuesday.

TIGTA’s first comprehensive report Monday on the controversial data-sharing deal confirmed the tax agency shared information on about 47,000 individuals with ICE as part of the Trump administration’s immigration and deportation efforts. For less than 5% of those individuals, the IRS mistakenly gave ICE additional address information.

Democracy Forward argues in its filing that the report reveals that the privacy violations were systematic and not accidental and that it shows the IRS didn’t require an actual taxpayer address from ICE, as is required by the agency in its data sharing agreement.

The IRS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The watchdog said ICE didn’t meet proper standards and that the IRS was aware. The report also confirmed the IRS didn’t alert the court to concerns over invalid address matching until a few months after the watchdog flagged the issue.

“Any reliance on ICE’s representations was therefore unreasonable,” the filing said.

The case is Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS, D.C. Cir. App., No. 26-5006, filing 6/9/26