WHO HAS ACCESS TO SENSITIVE INFO AT THE IRS?

Protecting your info is part of our mission.

Just last week, a case TIGTA investigated resulted in a former IRS contractor being sentenced to 5 years in prison for disclosing thousands of federal tax returns without authorization to news organizations.

So, who has access to sensitive info at the IRS? And how do they get it?

Here are 5 numbers from our new report to help break it down before the weekend.

91,661

The number of users authorized to access IRS systems that contain tax return information and/or personally identifiable information. The majority are IRS employees. Users get access through the agency's Business Entitlement Access Request System (known as the BEARS application).

5,068

The number of total users that are contractors. These contractors were employed by 187 different companies.

319

The number of sensitive systems in BEARS. We included 276 in our review - the rest weren't available for technical reasons that required IRS assistance that wasn’t resolved until after our review.

279

The number of users listed in BEARS who still had access to at least one IRS sensitive system despite no longer being employed by the agency. However, none of these users had access to the IRS network, which reduces the risk they can access a sensitive system.

3

TIGTA made three recommendations that included ensuring that access to sensitive systems is immediately suspended when a contractor is identified as not having a favorable background investigation determination and ensuring that user network and sensitive system access are timely removed for users who separate from the IRS. The IRS agreed with all three recommendations.