On November 26, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service issued interim guidance on FOIA requests seeking access to tax returns or return information, a portion of which is published below:

Effective immediately, FOIA requests for access to IRS records protected under 26 U.S.C. §6103, that do not contain proper identification or authorization necessary to release tax records, will be denied citing FOIA exemption (b)(3)/26 U.S.C. §6103 and appeal rights will be granted. The closing disposition on these requests will no longer be “imperfect”.

The response letter must include approved pattern language that neither confirms, nor denies, the existence of any record under 26 U.S.C. §6103.

The full text of the memo is available here (free trial subscription available).