White House, IRS exchanged confidential taxpayer info
Top Internal Revenue Service Obamacare official Sarah Hall Ingram
discussed confidential taxpayer information with senior Obama White
House officials, according to 2012
emails obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee and provided to The Daily Caller.
Lois Lerner, then head of the IRS Tax Exempt Organizations division,
also received
an email alongside White House officials that contained confidential
information.
Ingram attempted to counsel the White House on a lawsuit from
religious organizations opposing Obamacare’s contraception mandate.
Email exchanges involving Ingram and White House officials — including
White House health policy advisor Ellen Montz and deputy assistant to
the president for health policy
Jeanne Lambrew — contained confidential taxpayer information,
according to Oversight.
The emails provided to Oversight investigators by the IRS had
numerous redactions with the signifier “6103.”
Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code forbids a federal employee
from “disclos[ing] any return or return information obtained by him in
any manner in connection with his service as such an officer or an
employee.”
Federal employees who illegally disclose confidential taxpayer
information could face five years in prison.
“Thanks, David. Thanks for the information on [6103],” White House
official Lambrew wrote to IRS official David Fish in a July 20, 2012
exchange. “I am still hoping to understand whether the 50 percent rule
is moot if the organization does not offer goods and services for sale
to the general public. Do we assume that organizations like [6103] do
offer goods and services for sale?”
Another email from Montz to Ingram and others refers to the “[6103]
memo” and the “[6103] letter” while discussing organizations that are
not required to file 990′s.
Ingram appeared before Rep. Darrell Issa’s House Oversight Committee
Wednesday and claimed she could not recall a document that contained
confidential taxpayer information.
“Well one of the areas of interest is there’s a significant redaction
that quotes the statute 6103. Do you know who is underneath that
blackout?” Issa asked Ingram.
“I don’t recall the document so I can’t help you with what’s
underneath that redaction,” Ingram said.
“Her response has not put concerns to rest,” Oversight staffer
Frederick Hill said. ”This caught people’s eye.”
Issa has requested unredacted copies of the emails, citing a
prohibition from misusing Section 6103 “for the purpose of concealing
information from a congressional inquiry.”
Ingram headed the scandal-ridden IRS office responsible for
overseeing tax-exempt nonprofit groups before leaving to head the
agency’s office in charge of Obamacare implementation.
An IRS voice mail message declined to comment on any media inquiries
during the government shutdown, citing law.
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