IRS says taxpayers can’t sue it for data breach

[Audrey McNeil <audrey () riskbasedsecurity com>]

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/irs-says-taxpayers-can-t-sue-it-for-21353/

The Internal Revenue Service recently requested a federal judge in the D.C.
Circuit to dismiss a putative class action suit by taxpayers against the
IRS for a data breach earlier this year that affected over 330,000
taxpayers. The IRS alleges that the court doesn’t have jurisdiction over
the claims as the claims are preempted by the IRS Code, which allows
taxpayers to seek relief against the IRS for unlawfully disclosing tax
information. Further, the IRS claims that it is immune from liability under
the doctrine of sovereign immunity.

Finally, the IRS alleged that the taxpayers do not have standing to sue the
IRS as they have not alleged an actual injury.

The breach is alleged to have occurred when unauthorized individuals were
able to use the IRS’s “Get Transcript” service to get copies of tax
returns. The information breached included the taxpayers’ full tax
transcript, demographic information, children’s and spouse’s Social
Security numbers, W-2s, income and financial holdings.

The IRS claimed that the Get Transcript service has been taken down so it
can’t be used against taxpayers in the future.

The IRS has not provided any relief to taxpayers who were victims of filing
of fraudulent tax returns, such as fraud resolution or other mitigation,
unlike its assistance to those affected by the OPM data breach.

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