House members introduce missing-children bill

A bipartisan group of lawmakers announced they were introducing legislation that would give the IRS greater leeway to help find missing children.

As it stands, the IRS can only share tax-return information for limited reasons. The new measure would give law enforcement access to that data in the case of a missing child.  

“Information that could help bring an abducted child home is sitting right under our noses, yet we don’t empower law enforcement to use it,” Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a statement. 

Reps. Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee that deals with taxes, Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.) are also backers of the House measure.

The bill comes several months after a couple of bills on the topic were introduced in the Senate: one from Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), the other from Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and John Cornyn (R-Texas). 

Klobuchar attended a Wednesday event with House lawmakers to announce their new bill.

According to a release on that measure, the Treasury Department found in a limited sample that about 1 out of 3 children abducted by a parent had their Social Security number used in a tax return, which often could have told law enforcement the child’s new address. 

In all, 200,000 or so children a year are abducted by a family member.