The IRS told House Republicans this month that a former contractor leaked the private data of more than 400,000 taxpayers, nearly six times higher than originally thought.
Doug O’Donnell, the acting IRS commissioner, told House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that the agency had informed 405,427 taxpayers that the contractor, Charles Littlejohn, had leaked information from their tax returns or other agency forms.
The agency had said last year that it was telling around 70,000 businesses and individuals that Littlejohn had leaked their data.
Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison last year for the disclosures, which included returns for both President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who’s currently leading a government downsizing effort.
The New York Times reported on Trump’s returns, while ProPublica published stories on Musk and a number of other wealthy people.
About nine in 10 of those contacted were businesses, O’Donnell told Jordan in a Feb. 14 letter. But those returns could also include individual information.
For instance, Trump previously has disclosed that he owned hundreds of pass-through entities, in which the owner pays taxes for the business on his or her individual tax return.
O’Donnell added that the IRS also believes they will still need to tell “a relatively small number” of additional taxpayers that their information was disclosed by Littlejohn.
Republicans already thought that the government could have more aggressively prosecuted Littlejohn, who was charged with one count of disclosing tax return information without authorization.
Meanwhile, O’Donnell is set to retire from the IRS in the coming days, with the announcement coming after Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency sought access to IRS systems and as the Trump administration was laying off thousands of agency employees.
