Judge Kollar-Kotelly, Reading the IRS's Own Declaration, Says the IRS Violated the Tax Code About 42,695 Times in Sending ICE Taxpayer Addresses

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued an indicative ruling while the case was on appeal: “if it had jurisdiction, it would supplement the record on appeal” with the IRS’s new declaration. In the same opinion she wrote that “Defendants admit that, on August 7, 2025, the IRS disclosed confidential taxpayer addresses to ICE in violation of Section 6103(i)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code”. Her count: the IRS violated the IRC approximately 42,695 times. That is every address released through the IRS’s taxpayer-ID matching path without confirming that ICE’s request carried the taxpayer’s address, as the statute requires.

The agency’s own filing. IRS Chief Risk and Control Officer Dottie A. Romo executed the filing on February 11, 2026. It reports last known addresses released for 47,289 (3.7%) of the 1.28 million requests ICE sent. In its words the IRS “currently estimates” that less than 5% of the 47,289 individuals had potentially incomplete or insufficient ICE-supplied addresses. Treasury notified DHS on January 23, 2026.

Two numbers, two different defects. The under-5% figure counts defective ICE address fields. The figure of about 42,695 counts disclosures made without the statutory address check at all. They are not interchangeable. The rule here is the tax code’s confidentiality provision, not the Privacy Act.

Ledger class. ADMITTED, then FOUND. The court’s preliminary relief was later affirmed on appeal; see 2026-09-08–dc-circuit-affirms-block-on-irs-ice-taxpayer-address-sharing-center-for-taxpayer-rights. Earlier corpus entry: 2026-02-11–irs-declaration-may-have-released-taxpayer-addresses-to-ice, dated before the IRS filing.