House lawmakers passed Tuesday the Taxpayer Data Protection Act, legislation that increases the maximum penalty for making an unauthorized disclosure of tax information.
Current law states that any violation for the unauthorized disclosure of tax information is a felony punishable by a fine up to $5,000, up to five years in prison, or both.
H.R. 8292 increases the maximum fine to $250,000 and the maximum prison term to 10 years.
The measure "comes after the leak of thousands of Americans' tax information, including the tax returns of President Trump," by Internal Revenue Service contractor Charles Littlejohn, who was sentenced in January to the maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., said Tuesday in a statement.
The bill also clarifies that "any violation on which affects more than one taxpayer shall be treated as a separate, distinct violation," Smith said.
Starting in 2019, Littlejohn stole taxpayer data and leaked it to The New York Times and ProPublica.
"Those organizations then published a significant amount of confiidential tax information targeting numerous American taxpayers, using information that the IRS is tasked with keeping confidential and secure," according to a statement summarizing the bill.
