A manager for the IRS (an employee for 34 years) was sentenced to 12 months in prison, 12 months of supervised release and a $20,000 fine for conflict of interest due to her exceeding her authorized access to government information. Jeanne Gavin was convicted for accessing information on IRS computers in order to use that information in a business she operated on the side of her IRS employment. She supervised 10 revenue officers who were responsible for calculating federal tax liabilities and collecting taxes from taxpayers.
Apparently Jeanne Gavin operated her own tax practice while concurrently working in her IRS position, and used her position in the IRS to have her subordinates access the IRS databases over 2000 times to give herself an advantage in her private tax practice business. She lead her employees to believe that this access was for IRS business, but was actually for her own tax clients.
As a citizen paying taxes to the IRS, this bothers me. It not only bothers me that she accessed it for personal gain in her business, giving her information she wouldn’t have otherwise had access to, but that our privacy as citizens is not protected as it should be. I am not a CPA, nor do I prepare income tax returns, so I’m not concerned that agents can access data in order to gain an advantage in their own tax practices (which is not allowed), but that our social security numbers, income, business information, etc, is more readily available than it should be. I wonder how many people working for the IRS have access to our data. Maybe it is better than I am assuming since she did ask employees to get the information under false pretenses, but perhaps she did it so she didn’t get caught looking up the information.
I hope the IRS takes a look at this situation and figures out ways to protect us and keep our information private. As the IRS admits, identity theft is already a problem with criminals filing false income tax returns with other people’s social security numbers to get a refund, and that is from those (supposedly) outside of IRS employment. How much more at risk are we from agents employed by the IRS?
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration stated “As our voluntary system of tax administration relies heavily upon the public’s confidence in a fair tax system, IRS employees must conduct themselves with the highest level of integrity and their conduct must be above reproach.” I agree.
Candy
