The IRS has revealed (opens in a new tab) inadvertently disclosed the data of approximately 120,000 US taxpayers.
The agency says that all offensive information has been removed from its website and will send notifications to anyone affected in the coming weeks.
The leak has affected users of a specific type of corporate tax return, Form 990-T, used by tax-exempt entities such as charities and retirement accounts to pay income tax on income generated from investments or not related to their primary purpose.
What has been revealed?
The leak contained names, contact details, and financial information about income on affected accounts, according to the agency’s statement, but reportedly did not include social security numbers, complete information on individual income, details of financial accounts, or other “sensitive information that may affect the taxpayer’s relief ”.
This is not the first time the IRS has struggled with data protection issues.
Organization of investigative journalism ProPublica released IRS data on some of the richest people in the US, such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, and the source of the leak is yet to be known.
However, the agency’s IT systems and tax software could improve enormously soon.
In August 2022, US President Joe Biden signed an additional $ 80 billion in funding for the IRS, some of which was earmarked to help modernize IT systems and hire seasoned new technology specialists.
But not only has the IRS leaked data in recent months, it seems that all kinds of organizations, big and small, are vulnerable to data leaks.
The data of over 2.5 million people who took out student loans with the Oklahoma Student Loan Authority (OSLA) or EdFinancial was exposed as a result of a data breach as a result of exposure to a third-party IT provider.