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Using Taxpayer Records for Personal Reasons Leads to Removal

By Susan Smith

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

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Susan McGuire Smith spent most of her 26-year federal government career with NASA, first at NASA Headquarters Office of General Counsel and then at Marshall Space Flight Center, serving as Chief Counsel there for more than 14 years. Her expertise is in government contracts, ethics, and personnel law. Ms. Smith has a J.D and a B.A. degree from the George Washington University. Her publications include Practical Ethics for the Federal Employee.

The Internal Revenue Service does not tolerate its employees accessing taxpayer information for personal reasons. One IRS employee, fired for this offense, has found no sympathy at the Merit Systems Protection Board, or the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. (Albritton v. Department of the Treasury, C.A.F.C. No. 2008-3075 (nonprecedential), 4/14/08)

Albritton was a Tax Examining Technician. She made unauthorized accesses to taxpayer records supposedly to try to locate her son and her niece's ex-husband. (Opinion, pp. 1-2)

The agency strictly prohibits unauthorized access, provides routine training for its employees warning them that such activity violates agency rules and federal law, and requires its employees to sign statements indicating that they understand these rules. Albritton signed several statements verifying that she had received the training and that she understood the consequences, including the possibility of removal. (p. 2)

In spite of being aware of the consequences, Albritton violated the policy and the IRS fired her. She did not deny her actions, but argued that she had a medical condition that led her to do it. (p. 2)

The Merit Systems Protection Board affirmed Albritton's removal as reasonable after finding that the agency had weighed all the relevant factors before reaching its decision, including Albritton's medical condition claim. (p. 3)

Albritton took her case to the Federal Circuit and argued that the removal penalty was not appropriate. The court, concluding that her removal was "well within the bounds of reasonableness," pointed out that Congress has "made clear that the unauthorized access to tax payers records is a serious offense." (pp. 3-4)

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Readers' Comments

  • The only comment that I would like to make is that the individuals making comments about snooping who work for other other government agencies have done it as well. The difference is that they did not lose their jobs. How many can honestly say that they have not seen documents or files that they rea...
    Posted: May 26, 2008 5:42 PM
  • If this was indeed a valid point, then there should be an office/agency too address this in locating the missing person. If it is a medical emergency then I believe she should have been place on a different assignment with the possibility of removal as the end result. But if this is truly for pers...
    Posted: April 24, 2008 3:29 PM
  • We constantly get reminders about accessing records. Each year we sign another statement. I recently audited our confidential records to verify that the employees had done so correctly and found an employee had accessed several family members' records plus an ex in law's record. She felt she should ...
    Posted: April 24, 2008 1:27 PM

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