The IRS provided Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with last-known address information for nearly 47,000 people under a controversial data-sharing agreement, according to a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

According to TIGTA, last year, ICE asked the IRS for address information tied to more than 1.2 million records. The IRS ultimately provided last-known addresses for approximately 47,000 people after an automated process matched ICE-provided information against IRS records.

TIGTA found problems with the process. According to the watchdog, the IRS developed an automated matching system before releasing the information, but the criteria “were unable to identify and match the records accurately and consistently.” In some instances, records requests that should have been rejected may not have been. In others, possible matches may have failed due to minor formatting differences.

TIGTA did not take a position in its report on whether the IRS-ICE agreement was legal, but focused on the IRS processes and controls for implementing the agreement. Still, the findings are likely to add fuel to existing concerns about the use of IRS data for immigration enforcement.

How The IRS-ICE Agreement Worked

Taxpayer information is generally protected from disclosure under section 6103 of the tax code. That provision broadly bars federal employees from disclosing tax returns and return information unless a statutory exception applies. The IRS relied on one of those exceptions—section 6103(i)(2)—to share limited return information with ICE for nontax criminal investigations.

The data-sharing agreement, signed in April 2025, authorized ICE to request address information for certain individuals. That agreement followed two executive orders by President Donald Trump. One directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take steps to exclude or remove certain noncitizens subject to exceptions related to serious criminal investigations, prosecutions, or national security interests. Another pushed agencies to make government data easier to share across the executive branch.

The agreement drew immediate scrutiny. House Democrats sought unredacted copies of the agreement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, citing concerns that the arrangement could lead to “grave consequences” for taxpayers whose information was shared. A heavily redacted version of the agreement filed in court made it difficult to understand the purpose of the disclosure, agency duties, and the information to be disclosed.

Critics also worried the arrangement would be broader than officials had suggested. Early reports indicated that the IRS would verify immigrants’ names and addresses against tax records, but........

© Forbes