TIGTA Report Reveals Flawed IRS-ICE Data Sharing Agreement Led to Errors in Address Verification

A newly released report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has provided the first official accounting of the scale of a controversial data-sharing agreement between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The report documents significant security concerns and errors in the arrangement, which has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and internal controversy.

The agreement, crafted in 2025, allowed ICE to submit names and addresses of immigrants in the U.S. illegally to the IRS for cross-verification against tax records.

The deal led to the resignation of the then-acting IRS commissioner. TIGTA found that inconsistent formatting in ICE's data and the IRS's matching criteria led to errors in the verification process.

According to the report, after the agreement was signed, ICE requested address information on more than 1.2 million people. The IRS ultimately provided last-known addresses for about 47,000 individuals.

TIGTA concluded that the IRS's automated matching process was flawed, with inconsistent formatting in ICE's data leading to questionable matches. In some cases, incomplete or inaccurate addresses were labeled as valid.

Representatives from the Treasury and the IRS did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment. The plan to cross-verify tax and immigration data is part of President Donald Trump's agenda to secure U.S.

borders and his larger nationwide immigration crackdown, which has resulted in deportations, workplace raids, and the use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants.

This is not the first time that tens of thousands of taxpayers' information has been revealed to ICE. In February, a federal judge ruled that the IRS broke the law by disclosing confidential taxpayer information to ICE, referring to the same 47,000 disclosures highlighted in the TIGTA report.

No recommendations were made in the new TIGTA report, according to a letter written by Nancy A. LaManna, deputy inspector general for inspections and evaluations.