A federal watchdog found that IRS workers looked into the private tax files of politicians, business leaders and entertainers, and the agency had no tool built to catch them.
Story Snapshot
- The watchdog flagged 86 suspicious looks at the tax records of 30 well-known taxpayers by 52 IRS employees.
- The review covered nearly 6 million searches of IRS records from 2022 through November 2025.
- The IRS had no controls set up to guard the accounts of celebrities and public officials.
- In 53 confirmed snooping cases, the IRS fired 31 employees and kept 22 on the job.
- 276 taxpayers in a separate set of closed cases were not told their records had been improperly viewed, as IRS rules require.
Watchdog Uncovers Pattern of Snooping
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the watchdog that oversees the IRS, released its report on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. The audit looked at the IRS program meant to stop workers from viewing tax records they have no work reason to see. It found gaps at every step: stopping the snooping, punishing it and telling the victims.
IRS Couldn't Detect Suspicious Searches of Politicians, CEOs, and Celebritieshttps://t.co/1ikcu5tf9z
— PJ Media (@PJMedia_com) October 4, 2026
Investigators checked audit logs, the computer records of who searched what, from the IRS’s Integrated Data Retrieval System. Among nearly 6 million searches, they found 86 suspicious accesses tied to 30 taxpayers, made by 52 employees. The accounts belonged to government officials, business leaders and entertainers. The report found the IRS had no controls in place to block or watch for snooping on the accounts of celebrities and public officials.
A Blind Spot Built Into the System
Part of the problem was a gap in the search tools. Certain “NAMES” commands let employees pull up a taxpayer’s identifying details with only part of a last name. Those searches slipped past the monitoring the IRS uses to catch snooping. The system also did not limit employees to the accounts assigned to them.
The watchdog referred the 86 flagged accesses to its Office of Investigations. The report does not say any of these searches led to a leaked tax return. Its finding is about the gap itself: the IRS had no way to stop this kind of browsing and no reliable way to catch it.
22 Snoopers Kept Their Jobs
The watchdog also reviewed 53 confirmed cases of unauthorized access from fiscal years 2023 through 2025. The IRS fired 31 of those employees. It kept the other 22, and all 22 received some form of discipline. In 13 cases, the officials who decided cited the worker’s years of service and a first offense as reasons not to fire.
IRS officials said federal employment law requires them to weigh those factors. The watchdog pointed out that the IRS’s own penalty guide lists firing as the penalty for snooping on taxpayers without their knowledge or consent.
Victims Left in the Dark
In a separate look at 122 closed cases, the watchdog found 276 affected taxpayers who were not told their records had been viewed. Of those, 175 were missed because staff did not follow the notice steps. The other 101 were missed because the employees involved resigned or retired before any discipline was proposed.
The IRS later said it had notified 182 taxpayers. Some of those notices came hundreds of days late, and 11 taxpayers waited between 1,001 and 1,423 days to hear.
IRS Agrees to Fix Gaps, but History Repeats
The IRS agreed or partly agreed with seven of the watchdog’s eight recommendations. They cover tighter access controls, better monitoring, clearer discipline rules and stronger oversight. The one it rejected called for overall time limits on telling victims; the IRS said such standards already exist.
Congress made willful snooping in taxpayer records a federal crime in 1997. For an agency with this much power over every family’s finances, and one many conservatives have distrusted since past scandals over political targeting, the report shows that a law on the books and a promise of reform are not the same as real protection.
Sources:
pjmedia.com, yournews.com, naturalnews.com, justthenews.com
