Not that anything will happen to him or her. No crime perpetrated by Fed and their underlings goes punished.
A House committee investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of right-leaning groups has identified the IRS agent who leaked the confidential donor list of the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative organization that opposes gay marriage. NOM’s donor list, contained in a Form 990 Schedule B, which it is required by law to file with the IRS, was obtained in March 2012 by its chief political opponent, the Human Rights Campaign, and subsequently became the subject of several national news stories that centered on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s donation to the group.
Though the House Ways and Means Committee, which began investigating the scandal in the wake of revelations that the IRS had inappropriately singled out conservative groups, has identified the individual who divulged the information as an employee in the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division, it can’t divulge his name to the public or to NOM. It can’t even confirm when the leak took place, whether the perpetrator was disciplined, or even whether he is still employed by the IRS or the U.S. government. That’s because of a peculiarity of the Internal Revenue Code’s section 6103, which is intended to protect the confidentiality of taxpayer information. The law makes it a felony to disclose tax returns or related information to the public, but in an odd twist, the results of investigations conducted by congressional committees or by inspectors general are considered the confidential tax information of the alleged perpetrator.
Having committed a felony by disclosing NOM’s donor list, the perpetrator is protected by the same law he broke. “I am astounded at the ease by which an individual was able to obtain and release confidential information including private citizens’ names and addresses,” House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) tells National Review Online. “What makes the situation even worse is that the law, intended to protect taxpayers, is being used as a shield for those that perpetrate this wrongdoing.”
Flip side of having so many laws that everyone is acting illegally somehow. With so many laws, you can find some inconsistency or gray area or hole such that you can protect those that you want to.
1) redacting everything in a meaningless memo for ‘privacy reasons or client-attorney privilege’ when responding to FOIA request
2) Ocare law irovides for fines that can only be applied when a court finds against person (and then only taken from tax refund). So HHS promulgated regulations that say they will revoke your driver’s license and put a lien on your home over unpaid fines. Why? Well the law didn’t say they couldn’t.
That lien on homes for unpaid fines (taxes per JRoberts) strikes me as another blow against property rights following Kelo decision. I think without Kelo, HHS wouldn’t have done that.
The IRS ‘privacy requirement’ relied upon above to prevent release of employee name – I’m fairly certain that’s why there is that statement on the health exchange sites that you agree (voluntary consent) that your info. can be shared with authorities, eg, so IRS can send to various Federal and State agencies that you have unpaid fines (taxes) and therefore revoke driver’s license, put lien on home. Not sure how IRS will claim that the unpaid tax/fine info. can be shared if you never enter into an exchange site. Maybe that’s also part of reason why they want all health ins. plans outside of exchanges to be destroyed.