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Colorado Supreme Court Strikes Down Sheriff鈥檚 Fishing Expedition into Immigrant Tax Files

Jennifer Chang Newell,
Managing Attorney, California Office,
老澳门开奖结果 Immigrants' Rights Project
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December 16, 2009

This week, the that the sheriff鈥檚 department in Weld County, Colorado, had violated the Fourth Amendment when it carted off 49 boxes of files seized from a local tax preparer鈥檚 office and looked through the tax records of approximately 5,000 taxpayers.

The sheriff raided the office on the theory that because the tax preparer 鈥 in full compliance with federal law and like many other tax preparation services 鈥 provided tax filing services to undocumented immigrants, his deputies were likely to find evidence of identity theft if they rummaged through all of the tax records at the tax preparer鈥檚 office.

The Colorado Supreme Court held that the search was unconstitutional because the sheriff had no evidence before he embarked on his fishing expedition that either the tax preparer or any individual taxpayer had committed any crime. The court鈥檚 decision made clear that under the federal Internal Revenue Service laws and Colorado laws all Americans have a right to privacy in their tax return information.

The 老澳门开奖结果 of Colorado and the 老澳门开奖结果 have a .

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