Suit to Make IRS Release Records

IRS Flouts Court Orders, TRAC press release, Feb. 11, 2008:

The Internal Revenue Service is flouting three court orders requiring it to regularly provide a nationally-recognized researcher with the statistical data she needs for her studies, according to a court action brought today by the researcher.

The new motion was filed by Susan B. Long, a professor at Syracuse University's Martin J. Whitman School of Management. For more than 30 years Long has used the IRS's own statistical data to examine how this powerful agency has been enforcing the nation's tax laws.

In the February 11 filing Long requests that Judge Marsha Pechman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington enforce two of her own court orders against the agency, issued in 2006, as well as the court's 1976 consent agreement on the same issue.

Prof. Long is co-director of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. She is represented by Scott Nelson (Public Citizen Litigation Group) and Eric M. Stahl (Davis Wright Tremaine). A copy of the 25-page motion is here and the 102-page supporting declaration is here.