Privacy Law Conflicts With Fact Finding in Probes of IRS
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It isn’t just an IRS official pleading the Fifth Amendment that’s slowing efforts to uncover the facts behind the Internal Revenue Service scandal. It’s Section 6103.
The tax code’s privacy protections -- designed to prevent disclosure of taxpayers’ information -- were mentioned 26 times in the first round of congressional hearings on the IRS, repeatedly stopping lawmakers’ inquiries. The constitutional protection against self-incrimination was invoked once.