Sens. Daines and Cortez Masto Push to Raise Fines for Leaking Private Tax Records to $250,000
This bill is currently in the early stages of the legislative process after being sent to the Senate Committee on Finance for review. It is actively moving through the system, but no future hearings or votes have been scheduled yet. There is no companion bill currently associated with this legislation.
The bill has support from both parties and addresses a common concern about privacy, but many tax bills struggle to get a final vote in a busy Congress.
Scores run from -100 (strongly harmful) to +100 (strongly beneficial) for each group, combining impact, certainty, scope, and duration ratings of 1-5. How impact scoring works
Small businesses that contract with the IRS face a new felony provision if they willfully fail to protect tax data and that failure leads to a leak. Fines could reach $500,000 or 25% of the total value of their IRS contracts. This could discourage smaller firms from bidding on IRS work due to the elevated risk, but it also pushes all contractors toward better data security practices that benefit taxpayers.
“In the case of a contractor of the Internal Revenue Service that willfully fails to implement or enforce any applicable requirement under section 6103 (or regulations prescribed thereunder) to protect the confidentiality of returns or return information”
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Sent to a congressional committee for expert review. The committee decides whether this bill moves forward.
Introduced in Senate
The bill was officially filed and given a number. It now enters the legislative queue.
Sens. Steve Daines and Catherine Cortez Masto introduced S.B. 4752 to amend the Internal Revenue Code, raising criminal penalties for unauthorized disclosure to $250,000 and seven years in prison. The bill also creates a new felony for IRS contractors who fail to implement data safeguards.
A new bipartisan proposal aims to increase the criminal penalty for unauthorized disclosure of tax returns from $5,000 to $250,000. It also establishes a maximum penalty for IRS contractors of either $500,000 or 25 percent of the value of relevant contracts for failing to enforce safeguards.
The proposed legislation strengthens protections for sensitive tax data by increasing fines and prison sentences for leaks. It specifically targets the growing use of government contractors, introducing a new felony offense for willful neglect of required security safeguards.
No votes or related bills recorded for this bill yet.
Document Type
Congressional Bill
Official Title
A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase criminal and civil penalties for unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information, and for other purposes.
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