Fergie's Tech Blog

IRS Tracked U.S. Taxpayers’ Political Affiliation

Via TheNewsTribune.com. (Tacoma, Washington)

As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an “outrageous violation of the public trust” that could undermine the agency’s credibility.

IRS officials acknowledged that party affiliation information was routinely collected by a vendor for several months. They told the vendor last month to screen the information out.

posted by Fergie @ 1/12/2006 12:35:00 PM