Paypal customer records sought in ongoing US tax probe
Published April 12th, 2006
The Justice Department has asked PayPal, the electronic funds payment arm of eBay (EBAY), to turn over some customer records as part of an ongoing tax evasion probe, a top tax official said Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge James Ware in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a “John Doe” summons to San Jose, Calif.-based PayPal for the records in February.
Eileen J. O’Connor, assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division, mentioned the summons to reporters during a press conference on tax enforcement trends. A “John Doe” summons permits the IRS to obtain information about possible tax fraud by people whose identities are unknown.
O’Connor said the request is part of an ongoing Justice and Internal Revenue Service probe of possible tax evasion by U.S. taxpayers using credit cards issued by offshore banks. The government has made similar requests of MasterCard (MST.XX) and Visa (MST.XX).
