TAX-EXEMPT DISCLOSURES:

For the second time this year, the IRS has mistakenly disclosed information submitted by tax-exempt organizations reporting income unrelated to their exempt purposes.

In a December 15 statement, the IRS said a subset of non-disclosable Forms 990-T, Exempt Organization Business Income Tax Return had been inadvertently made available for a short time by a contractor. Previously, the contractor had been told to remove the forms from their application, the IRS said.

The forms, which did not contain sensitive taxpayer information, were published to the tax-exempt organization search webpage on irs.gov as a result of an internal programming error. The IRS said that when it learned of the error, it removed the files promptly.

“The IRS is continuing to review the situation to identify opportunities to establish additional controls and strengthen existing controls to protect taxpayer information,” the statement said.

In September the IRS said some machine-readable data from Forms 990-T that were made available for bulk download on its website shouldn’t have been made public. The inadvertent disclosure included the information of about 120,000 individuals, according to a September 2 letter from Treasury to Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.