Appeals court upholds IRS address sharing block with ICE

A federal appeals court has upheld an injunction that prevents the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from sharing taxpayer addresses with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), ruling that the agency’s procedure violated federal tax-confidentiality laws. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found the IRS’s practice unlawful, affirming a lower court’s order that had halted the data-sharing arrangement. Under an agreement initiated in July 2025, the IRS had begun processing requests from ICE for the last known addresses of individuals suspected of unlawfully residing in the United States. The agency’s procedure allowed ICE to obtain taxpayer information by providing a five or nine-digit number in an address field, even if it was not a valid ZIP code or actual address. This system automated the review of millions of records without requiring individualized verification or other compliance mechanisms, according to court findings.