The Inner Income Service issued a uncommon apology to billionaire investor Ken Griffin over the leak of his tax returns to the press.
The apology follows the Monday settlement of a lawsuit the Citadel CEO filed in opposition to the IRS in 2022, alleging that an worker on the company illegally leaked his tax returns to the information website ProPublica.
In 2021, ProPublica additionally printed different billionaires’ tax info, together with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and actual property mogul Stephen Ross, in a 2021 collection known as “The Secret IRS Recordsdata.”
The IRS worker in query — authorities contractor Charles Littlejohn — additionally leaked the confidential tax returns of hundreds of different rich Individuals to the New York Occasions.
The previous authorities contractor was sentenced to 5 years in jail in January after he pleaded responsible to unauthorized disclosure of tax returns.
“The IRS takes its tasks significantly and acknowledges that it failed to forestall Mr. Littlejohn’s prison conduct and illegal disclosure of Mr. Griffin’s confidential knowledge,” the IRS mentioned in a press release.
“Accordingly, the IRS assures Mr. Griffin and the opposite victims of Mr. Littlejohn’s actions that it has made substantial investments in its knowledge safety to strengthen its safeguarding of taxpayer info.”
Littlejohn accessed the tax knowledge via an IRS database and uploaded it to a personal web site to keep away from the company barrier stopping massive downloads. He handed former president Donald Trump’s tax info to the New York Occasions and handed others’ info, together with Griffin’s, to ProPublica.
“He violated the phrases of his contract and betrayed the belief that the American folks place within the IRS to safeguard their delicate info,” the IRS mentioned in a press release.
The billionaire’s lawyer, William A. Burck of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, mentioned the lawsuit got here after years of stonewalling.
“Though the IRS has acknowledged its failures, apologized to the hundreds of Individuals who have been victimized, and has promised to guard taxpayer info sooner or later, it can be crucial that each one of us maintain it accountable to fulfill that promise,” Burck instructed the Submit in a press release.
“I’m grateful to my workforce for securing an end result that can higher defend American taxpayers and that can finally profit all Individuals,” Griffin mentioned in a press release to a number of information retailers, together with CBS and FOX, Tuesday.
