"IRS Mistakenly Publishes 112,000 Taxpayer Records for the Second Time"

In November, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accidentally republished 112,000 taxpayer data records that were previously published due to a technical issue earlier in the year. An external contractor operating on behalf of the IRS and tasked with managing a database for the government agency is supposedly to blame for the incident. According to a letter sent to congressional leaders, the incident involves the upload of 990-T forms containing private information used by tax-exempt entities, including government entities and retirement accounts, to pay income tax on income coming from specific investments or that is unrelated to their exempt purpose. In September 2022, the IRS disclosed that Form 990-T data, which should not have been made public had been made available for download through its Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS). At the time, it deleted the files and planned to replace them in the future with updated versions. This time, a contractor reuploaded older files to the database containing the original data, rather than fresh files that ensured the forms were set to be kept private. The IRS had provided the contractor with the new data on November 23, but the contractor had not yet deleted the outdated files from their system. This article continues to discuss the exposure of 112,000 taxpayer records due to a contractor error. 

ITPro reports "IRS Mistakenly Publishes 112,000 Taxpayer Records for the Second Time"