After tax return data leak, US Treasury terminates consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton contracts

The US Treasury Department has terminated its contracts with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton following the conviction of a former contractor linked to the company for leaking sensitive tax data of thousands of wealthy Americans, including President Donald Trump, to media organisations.The decision comes amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to act against entities it views as having failed to protect the president’s interests or sensitive government information, AP reported.In 2024, Charles Edward Littlejohn, a former Internal Revenue Service contractor who worked through Booz Allen Hamilton, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking confidential tax records.According to prosecutors, Littlejohn shared tax data with The New York Times and ProPublica between 2018 and 2020 in what they described as leaks “unparalleled in the IRS’s history”. The disclosures included tax information of President Trump and thousands of other high-income individuals.Court filings said Littlejohn deliberately sought a contractor role to gain access to Trump’s tax returns and methodically learned how to extract data without raising internal alarms.The Treasury Department said it currently holds 31 contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton, involving annual spending of $4.8 million and total obligations of $21 million.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the contracts were ended because the firm “failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including the confidential taxpayer information it had access to through its contracts with the Internal Revenue Service”.The move effectively cuts Booz Allen off from Treasury-related work linked to taxpayer data.A representative of Booz Allen Hamilton was not immediately available for comment, as reported AP.