A government watchdog group fired another shot in its legal battle to obtain records of the unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information to White House officials when it filed a motion late Tuesday against the IRS inspector general.
Cause of Action, a nonprofit oversight group, pressed the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration on why it had cited a law written to protect taxpayers against the government in an attempt to instead protect the government against the taxpayers’ inquiry.
“The central question in this case is whether [Section 6103], a law passed to protect taxpayers’ confidential information to prevent political targeting and abuse, should be construed to protect the political officials who violate its provisions,” Cause of Action said in its court filings.
The nonpartisan group pointed to the fact that it had not requested “any taxpayer’s income, payment history, deductions, net worth, or liability for an offense related to his own taxes” in its motion.
Cause of Action first requested the records in October 2012 through the Freedom of Information Act.
After sparring in court for more than a year, the inspector general released less than 1 percent of the 2,509 relevant records it claimed to have, citing Section 6103.
“Section 6103 was passed to stop White House and other officials from obtaining the tax return information of government critics and political opponents,” said Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action.
Epstein criticized the “unprecedented ruling” by the IRS inspector general that the law “actually shields the identities of the government lawbreakers who requested or obtained tax data without proper authorization.”
The tax agency watchdog admitted earlier this month to probing the White House’s unauthorized access to taxpayer data.
