Treasury Watchdog Rewrites Letter on FOIA’d Tax Documents

A legal letter implying that the White House and the Treasury secretary may have inappropriately viewed confidential taxpayer information prompted a do-over on Friday by an attorney for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

TIGTA attorney Gregory Williams in a Dec. 5 letter to the conservative transparency group Cause of Action sought to “clarify” an earlier letter explaining why the watchdog had rejected the group’s request under the Freedom of Information Act for 2,043 pages of documents related to charges of White House misuse of the Internal Revenue Service that emerged during the dispute over alleged political targeting of the IRS Exempt Organizations division.

Previously, the attorney’s explanation for the denial of release mentioned that the documents protected for privacy under Section 6103 of the tax code were “collected” by the Treasury secretary.

“To clarify, all of the records referenced in the previous partial determination are TIGTA records,” the revised letter said. “TIGTA exercises authorities delegated by the Secretary of the Treasury when it investigates allegations of unauthorized disclosure of return information or makes determinations regarding the release of TIGTA records under the FOIA, and any such investigations or determinations are performed solely by TIGTA.”

Cause of Action on Friday filed a revised challenge to the inspector general’s determination that the documents are not releasable.

But Executive Director Dan Epstein acknowledged to Government Executive that “it’s great to know” that the TIGTA had misworded its original letter and that he “hopes” there’s no coming evidence that the White House illegally accessed taxpayer data. “You’d think TIGTA, so lawyered up, would be making precise and accurate statements,” he added. Whether or not there was unauthorized access, “We just want to get the truth out.”

(Image via Orhan Cam / Shutterstock.com)