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The Daily OrangeProfessor files lawsuit against IRS for not responding to records request
Audits not received for research despite court order from 1976
By Madison Schmakel
Posted: 3/4/08, 11:13 PM EST Section: News
Susan Long, a professor at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, recently filed a lawsuit against the IRS for violating court orders.
The United States District Court in Seattle issued an order in 1976 that the IRS provide Long and her husband, Philip, with data from individual and corporate audits. Initially obtained for her graduate thesis while at the University of Washington, the court order required that all data from the IRS be sent to Long for research purposes, she said.
Currently, Long uses data from individual and corporate audits given to her by the IRS to provide information on the federal government for the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
But starting this year, the IRS stopped sending Long audits, which prompted her to file a lawsuit on Feb. 11 against the IRS for violating the court orders she already obtained.
"I gained a court order that said not only did they have to release it back then, but that they had to continue to do that whenever I asked for it," Long said.
The government agency complied with the court orders for more than 30 years until the past three, when it began distorting pages of information or leaving out entire portions of collected data. This was violating the agreement that required that all the data sent to Long be uncensored, unless the IRS obtained consent from the judge to conceal pieces of data.
"Basically they ignore the request, there are a whole series of requests that have been pending for three years," Long said. "That's a violation not only of the court order but of the Freedom of Information Act."
Aside from teaching managerial statistics, Long is also the co-director of the TRAC, which is a joint center of the Whitman and S.I. Newhouse Public Communications schools.
TRAC, co-directed by David Burnham, uses the data given to Long by the IRS to research the federal government's enforcement of taxes, spending, and staffing and then makes it more accessible to the public through the Web. Anyone can obtain this information at trac.syr.edu.
The United States District Court in Seattle issued an order in 1976 that the IRS provide Long and her husband, Philip, with data from individual and corporate audits. Initially obtained for her graduate thesis while at the University of Washington, the court order required that all data from the IRS be sent to Long for research purposes, she said.
Currently, Long uses data from individual and corporate audits given to her by the IRS to provide information on the federal government for the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
But starting this year, the IRS stopped sending Long audits, which prompted her to file a lawsuit on Feb. 11 against the IRS for violating the court orders she already obtained.
"I gained a court order that said not only did they have to release it back then, but that they had to continue to do that whenever I asked for it," Long said.
The government agency complied with the court orders for more than 30 years until the past three, when it began distorting pages of information or leaving out entire portions of collected data. This was violating the agreement that required that all the data sent to Long be uncensored, unless the IRS obtained consent from the judge to conceal pieces of data.
"Basically they ignore the request, there are a whole series of requests that have been pending for three years," Long said. "That's a violation not only of the court order but of the Freedom of Information Act."
Aside from teaching managerial statistics, Long is also the co-director of the TRAC, which is a joint center of the Whitman and S.I. Newhouse Public Communications schools.
TRAC, co-directed by David Burnham, uses the data given to Long by the IRS to research the federal government's enforcement of taxes, spending, and staffing and then makes it more accessible to the public through the Web. Anyone can obtain this information at trac.syr.edu.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
msgibbon
MG
posted 3/05/08 @ 11:46 AM EST
Mrs. Long is my new favorite professor. Any dent into the bureaucracy that is the IRS is awesome in my book. I hope some professor also refuses to pay federal taxes. (Continued…)
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