internal revenue service

A computer breach at the IRS in which thieves stole tax information from thousands of taxpayers is much bigger than the agency originally disclosed.

A leader in an India-based scam that scared American taxpayers into sending millions of dollars because they thought the U.S. government was after them was sentenced Wednesday to more than 14 years in prison by a judge who said he wanted to send a message to others considering similar crimes.

Investigators are blaming two IRS workers at a computer center in West Virginia for erasing thousands of emails related to the tax agency's tea party scandal, impeding congressional investigations into the treatment of conservative political groups.

The IRS is doing business with tax delinquent contractors despite a federal law that bars the tax agency from awarding contracts to these companies, a government watchdog said Wednesday.

The IRS is joining with state and private industry to combat identity theft by sharing more data about how tax returns are filed and taking other steps, officials announced Thursday. The effort is aimed at stemming a problem that has victimized thousands of taxpayers and cost the government billions of dollars from fraudulent returns.

The IRS has failed to implement dozens of security upgrades to combat cyberattacks, leaving the agency's computer systems vulnerable to hackers, a government watchdog told Congress Tuesday.

IRS investigators believe the identity thieves who stole the personal tax information of more than 100,000 taxpayers from an IRS website are part of a sophisticated criminal operation based in Russia, two officials told the Associated Press.

Congress is demanding answers about how identity thieves were able to steal the personal tax information of more than 100,000 taxpayers from an IRS website.

Thieves used an online service provided by the IRS to gain access to information from more than 100,000 taxpayers, the agency said Tuesday.

The IRS' overloaded phone system hung up on more than 8 million taxpayers this filing season as the agency cut millions of dollars from taxpayer services to help pay to enforce President Barack Obama's health law.