The US Inner Income Service issued an uncommon public apology to hedge fund supervisor Ken Griffin for failing to guard his confidential tax knowledge from being stolen and leaked to the media by a contractor now in jail.
That contractor, Charles Littlejohn, pulled off one of the crucial egregious safety breaches in IRS historical past, stealing tax return details about Griffin and different billionaires, together with former President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Lawmakers and authorities watchdogs have repeatedly warned about about lax safeguards on the IRS, which processed greater than 270 million tax returns in fiscal 12 months 2023. Littlejohn gave Trump’s tax info to the New York Occasions and the information on the others to ProPublica.
The IRS “sincerely apologizes to Mr. Kenneth Griffin and the 1000’s of different Individuals whose private info was leaked to the press,” the company mentioned Tuesday in an announcement. The company acknowledged it “failed to stop Mr. Littlejohn’s felony conduct and illegal disclosure of Mr. Griffin’s confidential knowledge.”
The apology is a part of a settlement with the founding father of Citadel LP, who sued the IRS for neglecting to place in place safeguards that led to his personal monetary info showing in ProPublica articles. Companies just like the US Authorities Accountability Workplace and the Treasury Inspector Basic for Tax Administration have sounded the alarm for years that such breaches had been doable.
With the settlement, the IRS mentioned it has “made substantial investments in its knowledge safety” to safeguard taxpayer knowledge.
“The company believes that its actions and the decision of this case will lead to a stronger and extra reliable course of for safeguarding the non-public info of all taxpayers,” in response to the IRS assertion.
Griffin applauded the result. “I’m grateful to my crew for securing an final result that can higher shield American taxpayers and that can finally profit all Individuals,” he mentioned in an announcement.
Littlejohn pleaded responsible to stealing and leaking the tax returns of billionaires together with Michael Bloomberg, majority proprietor of Bloomberg Information father or mother Bloomberg LP. Littlejohn was sentenced in January to 5 years in jail.
Whereas it’s uncommon for the IRS to apologize to a person, this isn’t the primary time the IRS has made a public apology. Final 12 months the IRS acknowledged wrongdoing to thousands and thousands of taxpayers who erroneously acquired notices and tax payments with incorrect info. The IRS additionally expressed remorse in 2017 for giving further scrutiny to non-profit teams with conservative sounding names.
The case is Griffin v. Inner Income Service, 22-cv-24023, US District Courtroom, Southern District of Florida.
