IRS agrees to share tax information to help with Trump deportation plans: court records

USA Today

09-04-2025

IRS agrees to share tax information to help with Trump deportation plans: court records Millions of people pay taxes with ITINs, which are used by people who don't have social security numbers and aren't legally present in the U.S.
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IRS agrees to share tax information to help Trump's deportation plans
The IRS will share taxpayer information, including addresses, with Homeland Security to assist in locating undocumented immigrants.
The IRS will share taxpayer information, including addresses, with Homeland Security to assist in locating undocumented immigrants.
This agreement aims to support the enforcement of immigration laws and identify individuals for criminal investigations.
Immigrant advocacy groups express concern that this policy could have a chilling effect on immigrants and deter them from paying taxes.
The IRS has agreed to share tax information with federal immigration agents to help them find immigrants in the U.S. illegally, according to court filings.
Amid the news about the immigration policy sharing tax information, Melanie Krause, the acting IRS commissioner, planned to resign from her post, according to two administration officials. The Washington Post first reported on her expected resignation due to the new agreement.
A spokesperson for the Treasury Department, which oversees the Internal Revenue Service, said Krause is headed on to a new endeavor but they did not disclose details. Krause could not be reached for comment.
The sharing agreement creates a framework to use tax information to fulfill President Donald Trump's promise to crack down on millions of undocumented people in the U.S.
Millions of immigrants who aren't lawfully present in the U.S., and don't have social security numbers, use Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to pay their taxes each year. IRS has their names and addresses.
In early February, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requested help from the Treasury Department in immigration enforcement.
In a court filing, Justice Department lawyers disclosed a copy of the redacted agreement between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security signed Monday by Noem and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Under the terms, Immigration and Customs Enforcement can obtain addresses and other details about people they are targeting for crimes.
'DHS can legally request (tax) return information relating to individuals under criminal investigation, and the IRS must provide it,' Justice Department lawyers wrote in a filing opposing a motion to block the policy.
The changes appear focused on criminal enforcement, however, they are likely to have a chilling effect on working immigrants, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the nonprofit American Immigration Council, said in a post on the social media site X. Thomas Kennedy of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, a pro-immigrant group, said on X that the policy would deter immigrants from paying taxes, hurting all Americans.
The nonprofit American Immigration Council estimated that households of undocumented immigrants paid nearly $90 billion in taxes in 2023, including close to $56 billion in federal taxes and $34 billion in state and local taxes. A federal report found there were over 5.8 million people with active ITINs as of Dec. 31, 2022.
In early March, two Chicago area not-for-profit organizations representing immigrant communities and workers sued the Treasury Department to prevent disclosing sensitive information of taxpayers who file ITINs to the IRS.
The groups worried that this would 'greatly facilitate DHS and ICE in identifying and locating millions of individuals who are potentially subject to removal,' the lawsuit, filed in D.C. district court, said. 'Access to this sensitive data by DHS and ICE would thereby expose millions of taxpayers to the administration's aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.'
In a declaration on Monday, Kathleen Evey Walters, chief privacy officer for IRS, said neither DHS nor ICE have so far requested information of taxpayers under the new agreement.
In a letter to Treasury Department officials, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Tuesday urged the department to uphold its "clear legal mandate" to protect taxpayer information and reject the "illegal use" of ITIN for immigration enforcement.
"Such an agreement would not only violate long-standing federal privacy protections but also undermine the integrity of our tax system, endanger vulnerable communities, and harm the broader U.S. economy," the 23 congressional representatives, all Democrats, wrote in the letter.
The IRS, they said, has no legal authority to use its data for immigration enforcement. Any effort to do so would violate federal law, they said.
The annual April 15 Tax Day is a week away.
Contributing: Nick Penzenstadler, Zac Anderson