Wyden Leads Colleagues in Call for IRS to Drop Unnecessary and Harmful Immigration Status Question on Tax Form

Wyden Leads Colleagues in Call for IRS to Drop Unnecessary and Harmful Immigration Status Question on Tax Form

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said today he is leading his Democratic colleagues in calling on the IRS to reverse a proposed rule that would, for the first time, add citizenship and work authorization questions to 2026 tax forms, in an effort to intimidate immigrants into not filing tax returns, and raising privacy concerns over the handling of private taxpayer data.

In a letter to IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, Wyden and the other senators described how adding a new immigration question serves no clear tax purpose and could result in a loss of $300 billion in tax receipts. Wyden has been a leading voice in the Senate sounding the alarm on the Trump administration's data sharing agreement between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the IRS, which exposed the private data of thousands of taxpayers. The letter also pushes for the release of the updated tax gap estimate, which has been delayed almost a year.

"We write to urge you to drop the newly proposed citizenship and work authorization checkbox from the final version of the 2026 Form 1040. Adding this question for the first time in history appears to serve no legitimate tax administration purpose and risks increasing the tax gap by hundreds of billions of dollars," the senators wrote Bisignano.

"Turning the 1040 into an immigration tracker actively sabotages voluntary tax compliance and undermines the IRS's core tax collection responsibilities. Public trust is already at a low point after the IRS illegally handed over the private data of more than 42,000 taxpayers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Putting this question on the front page of the Form 1040 will only discourage people from filing altogether," the senators continued .

In addition to Wyden, the letter was also led by U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M. The letter was signed by U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Alex Padilla, p-Calif., Peter Welch, D-Vt., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Patty Murray, D-Wash., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

The full text of the letter is here.