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During a hearing on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) today by House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee, Rep. Don Beyer asked tax law expert Nina Olson, the Executive Director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights who previously served as National Taxpayer Advocate at the IRS from 2001 to 2019, a series of questions about unauthorized access and sharing of legally protected taxpayer information held at the U.S. Treasury Department.

Beyer’s questions came amid an investigation by Ways and Means Committee Democrats into access granted to Elon Musk and “DOGE” employees including Marko Elez to Treasury payments systems and sensitive personal information on U.S. taxpayers.

A transcript of Beyer’s exchange with Olson follows below, and video is available here:

BEYER: Ms. Olson, you noted in your testimony that Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code provides taxpayers with the right to confidentiality once they file their returns with the IRS. There are only a handful of circumstances in which it is lawful for government officials to disclose or even view a taxpayer’s return or information found on a return.

With that in mind, I’d like to ask you a hypothetical question. If an unqualified, non-IRS political appointee were granted access to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service's payments system, and they inspect confidential taxpayer information for political purposes not authorized by law, could that be a crime?

OLSON: If it’s not authorized by law, it would be a crime, in my opinion.

BEYER: Could it also be a crime for this individual to share private taxpayer information gleaned from rummaging around the Fiscal Service’s Payment System with his boss, an unelected, unconfirmed billionaire?

OLSON: It would be a crime to share it, to disclose it, yes, to people who do not have authorization to receive it.

BEYER: And finally, what are the penalties for violating Section 6103, and is there a statute of limitations?

OLSON: So, under [26 U.S. Code Section] 7214 the penalties, as we’ve discussed earlier, it can be a fine up to $10,000 and then also up to five years imprisonment, or both, and it is the normal statute of limitation for criminal offenses: six years… three years from the occurrence and then in certain aggravated instances six years."