Information on more than 400,000 taxpayers was leaked by an IRS contractor, the tax agency said in a newly disclosed letter.
Acting IRS Commissioner Douglas W. O’Donnell wrote in the letter dated Feb. 14 and released to the public on Feb. 25 that Charles Littlejohn “inappropriately disclosed” information on 405,427 taxpayers.
O’Donnell said the number came from a data analysis conducted by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and the IRS.
The IRS previously pegged the number of people whose information was exposed at more than 70,000.
The agency did not respond to a request for comment.
“The IRS’s admission confirms the Committee’s suspicion and recent reports that show the scope of the leak was much broader than what the Biden Administration’s IRS initially led the public to believe,” Republicans on the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee said on the social media platform X….