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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

As Irs Gets Your Tax, Bill Gives Snoopers Ax

Knight-Ridder

Nobody can stop the tax collector from coming next Tuesday, the day federal income tax returns must be filed.

But Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, and others declared Tuesday that they’re determined to pass a law that makes criminals out of IRS employees who snoop, without permission, into the files of President Clinton, Elvis Presley or you.

“I’d like to see it passed before April 15,” Glenn said, “to send a signal across the land that those who maliciously violate the privacy of taxpaying Americans will be fined, they will be fired and they will get a jail term.”

Glenn has the support of IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner Richardson. Two recent examples convinced her.

In one case, a jury in Memphis, Tenn., last year found a former IRS employee innocent of illegal snooping, even though he gawked at tax information supplied by Elizabeth Taylor, Lucille Ball, Tom Cruise, Garth Brooks, Travis Tritt, Clinton and Presley.

A second former employee, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, was convicted of wire and computer fraud after snooping into the files of a political opponent, a woman he had dated, and others. But last month, a federal appeals court in Boston threw out the conviction.

One thing was missing in each case - proof the former employee passed on the results. Under current law, snooping isn’t a crime unless the employee passes on the information to somebody else.

The bill Glenn proposed Tuesday would make it a crime for IRS employees to browse, period.

An internal IRS report released by the senator Tuesday showed that the agency identified 1,515 cases of browsing in 1995 and 1994, and just 23 resulted in the employee’s firing.