On March 9, 2022, in the Eastern District of California, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee Paula Salcedo was charged by criminal complaint for unauthorized inspection of returns or return information. IRS employees are authorized to access only those accounts required to accomplish their official duties. Annually, employees certify their understanding of Internal Revenue procedures that restricts their access of taxpayers’ accounts for personal interest. Salcedo completed mandatory unauthorized awareness certifications in May 2017 and May 2018.

According to the court documents, on March 14, 2019, Salcedo attempted to conduct a search of her son’s father, with whom she had an ongoing child custody dispute; however, she accessed information of another individual with the same name. Beginning on or about July 18, 2019, Salcedo accessed Federal tax information of six individuals she knew personally, as well as the information of their dependents, spouses, and parents. In total, Salcedo made unauthorized accesses to IRS records pertaining to the tax filing history, wage, and income reports of 72 people.

If convicted, Salcedo could receive maximum imprisonment of one year and a fine up to $100,000.

Source:  The facts in this case narrative come from the following publicly available document: E.D. Cal., Crim. Compl., filed March 9, 2022.