CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA, PETITIONER V. INTERNAL REVENUE
SERVICE

   No. 86-472

   In the Supreme Court of the United States

   October Term, 1987

   On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit

   Brief for the Respondent

         TABLE OF CONTENTS
   Opinions below
   Jurisdiction
   Statute involved
   Question presented
   Statement
   Summary of argument
   Argument:
      Section 6103(a) of the Code protects "return information"
      from public disclosure even if the documents containing such
      information are redacted with a view to concealing the
      taxpayer's identity
      A. Introduction
      B. The text of Section 6103 compels rejection of the view that
         confidential return information must be disclosed upon
         redaction of the underlying document
      C. The legislative history of Section 6103 shows that it was
         not intended to authorize the redaction and disclosure of
         all return information
      D. The policies underlying Section 6103 support the court of
         appeals' conclusion that redaction of identifying details is
         not enough to permit disclosure of return information
   Conclusion
   Appendix

                            OPINIONS BELOW

   The opinion of the court of appeals panel (Pet. App. 24a-37a) is
reported at 792 F.2d 146.  The amended opinion of the en banc court of
appeals (Pet. App. 38a-93a) is reported at 792 F.2d 153.  The opinion
of the district court (Pet. App. 1a-14a) is reported at 569 F. Supp.
1165.

                             JURISDICTION

   The judgment of the court of appeals was entered on May 27, 1986.
On August 12, 1986, Justice White extended the time within which to
file a petition for a writ of certiorari to and including September
23, 1986.  The petition was filed on that date and was granted on
January 27, 1987.  The jurisdiction of this Court is invoked under 28
U.S.C. 1254(1).

                           STATUTE INVOLVED

   The relevant portions of Sections 6103, 6108 and 6110 of the
Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C.) are set out in a statutory appendix
(App., infra, 1a-20a).

                          QUESTION PRESENTED

   Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits the IRS from
disclosing tax "return information," but defines that term to exclude
"data in a form which cannot be associated with, or otherwise
identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer." The question
presented is whether this definition makes disclosable all documents
that, either in their original or redacted version, do not appear to
contain identifying details about the taxpayer to whom they pertain,
or whether, as the court of appeals held, the definition makes
disclosable only material that has been reformulated into a new form
(such as a statistical tabulation) that is inherently incapable of
being associated with a particular taxpayer.

                               STATEMENT

   1. Section 6103(a) of the Internal Revenue Code /1/ provides that
"(r)eturns and return information shall be confidential" and shall not
be disclosed "except as authorized by this title." Section 6103(b)(1)
defines a "return" to mean "any tax or information return, declaration
of tax, or claim for refund * * * which is filed with the Secretary *
* * and any amendment or supplement thereto, including supporting
schedules, attachments, or lists." Section 6103 (b)(2) in turn
provides an exhaustive definition of "return information." That
definition includes

      a taxpayer's identity, the nature, source, or amount of his
      income, payments, receipts, deductions, exemptions, credits,
      assets, liabilities, net worth, tax liability, tax withheld,
      deficiencies, overassessments, or tax payments, whether the
      taxpayer's return was, is being, or will be examined * * *, or
      any other data received by, recorded by, prepared by, furnished
      to, or collected by the Secretary with respect to a return or
      with respect to the determination of the existence, or possible
      existence, of liability * * * of, any person * * * for any tax,
      penalty, interest, fine, forfeiture, or other imposition, or
      offense * * * .

   "Return information" may be contained in or deduced from a variety
of documents furnished to or generated by the IRS.  "Return
information," for example, includes data supplied by a taxpayer on a
return, on some other IRS form, in correspondence with the IRS during
the course of an audit, in negotiation with an IRS examiner or appeals
officer, or in a formal protest to a proposed deficiency.  "Return
information" also includes data supplied to the IRS by third parties,
such as information provided by a taxpayer's employer on a W-2 Form,
or by a taxpayer's bank on a Form 1099.  And "return information" will
appear in numerous documents created by the IRS itself, such as a
notice to a taxpayer that his return has been selected for audit, a
report by an IRS examiner proposing adjustments to a return, or a
formal notice of deficiency.  "Return information" may also arise
outside the audit and collection process, e.g., in the context of a
taxpayer's request for an IRS ruling.  See I.R.C. Section
6103(b)(2)(B).

   After defining "return information" in this exhaustive fashion,
Section 6103(b)(2) goes on to provide that "such term (viz., 'return
information') does not include data in a form which cannot be
associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a
particular taxpayer." This proviso has come to be known as the
"Haskell Amendment." /2/ It is the meaning of this proviso that is the
focus of this case.

   2. On May 16, 1980, the Church of Scientology of California,
petitioner here, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
with the IRS.  See J.A. 17a-27a.  The request sought various types and
categories of records, including documents related to a pending Tax
Court case and "(c)opies of all information relating to or containing
the names of Scientology, Church of Scientology, (or) any specific
Scientology church" (id. at 19a).  /3/ Attached to petitioner's
request was an authorization to disclose its own records, executed by
its president (Pet. App. 10a).  Petitioner attached no authorization
to disclose the records of the other taxpayers listed in its request.

   In a response dated July 22, 1980, the IRS asked for additional
time to locate and consider releasing the records requested by
petitioner (Pet. App. 26a).  On September 17, 1980, treating the IRS's
failure to respond by that time as a denial, petitioner filed an
appeal to the Commissioner (J.A. 28a-31a).  The Commissioner
acknowledged the appeal, but did not immediately respond to it (Pet.
App. 1a-2a).  /4/

   On December 18, 1980, petitioner brought this suit in the United
States District Court for the District of Columbia to compel the IRS
to release the requested documents.  On June 24, 1983, the district
court granted summary judgment in favor of the IRS (Pet. App. 1a-4a).
Based upon in camera review of representative documents, the court
first ruled that the IRS had correctly withheld certain records and
portions of records that were responsive to petitioner's request (id.
at 4a-8a).  The court next held that the IRS had correctly limited its
search to records of petitioner itself, because none of the other
taxpayers named in petitioner's FOIA request had submitted the
requisite authorizations for disclosure of their records (id. at
10a-12a).  Finally, the court concluded that "(respondent's) efforts
to locate materials responsive to (petitioner's) request were
reasonable and, therefore, adequate as a matter of law" (id. at
12a-13a).

   Petitioner appealed, challenging among other things the adequacy of
the IRS's search for respoonsive documents.  In deciding to "limit
(its) search to files whose titles refer to the California Church,"
the IRS had assumed that numerous other files could be excluded from
the search on the ground that they contained only nondisclosable
"return information" of third parties (Pet. App. 31a, 40a).
Petitioner disputed that assumption, relying upon the interpretation
given to the Haskell Amendment by the courts in Neufeld v. IRS, 646
F.2d 661 (D.C. Cir. 1981), and Long v. IRS, 596 F.2d 362 (9th Cir.
1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 917 (1980).  Those decisions held that
the Haskell Amendment removes from the defined category of protected
information all material that, either in its original or its redacted
version, does not disclose the identity of the taxpayer to whom it
pertains.  Petitioner argued, in other words, that "return
information" ceases to be "return information" once the underlying
document has been redacted to excise identifying details about the
taxpayer.  On that basis, petitioner contended that the IRS's
rationale for excluding various files from the search was incorrect,
since the documents in those files would assertedly contain no "return
information" once the documents had been redacted.  The government,
relying on King v. IRS, 688 F.2d 488 (7th Cir. 1982), argued that mere
redaction is insufficient to transmute "return information" into
disclosable material, and that the Haskell Amendment instead requires
that return information have been reformulated by the IRS into "a form
which cannot be associated with * * * a particular taxpayer" before it
is subject to disclosure (I.R.C. Section 6103(b)(2)).  Since the IRS
files at issue here did not contain any such reformulated data, the
IRS contended that it had properly excluded those files from its
search.

   After the case had been briefed and argued before a panel, the
court of appeals entered an order stating that the full court had
decided, sua sponte, to consider en banc the following question, as to
which supplemental briefing was requested (Pet. App. 15a-16a):

      Should the Court adhere to the interpretation of 26 U.S.C.
      Section 1603(b)(2) (sic) adopted by the panel opinion in Neufeld
      v. Irs, 646 F.2d 661, 665 (D.C. 1981), or should it adopt a
      different interpretation, in particular that announced by the
      Seventh Circuit in King v. IRS, 688 F.2d 488, 490-(4)94 (7th
      Cir. 1982)?

   3. On May 27, 1986, the en banc court of appeals issued an opinion
addressing the meaning of the Haskell Amendment (Pet. App. 38a-89a).
/5/ On the same day, the panel issued an opinion addressing the other
issues presented in the case, applying the holding of the en banc
court to the facts of the case, and vacating and remanding the case to
the district court for further proceedings (id. at 24a-37a).  /6/

   In its en banc opinion, the court of appeals explicitly rejected
its prior decision in Nuefeld v. IRS, supra, and the holding of the
Ninth Circuit in Long v. IRS, supra.  The court held instead that the
key to proper construction of the Haskell Amendment "is the crucial
phrase 'in a form'" (Pet. App. 50a).  The court reasoned that this
phrase envisions "not merely the deletion of an identifying name or
symbol on a document that contains return information, but agency
reformulation of the return information into a statistical study or
some other composite product," a reformulation that would "give( )
added assurance that a taxpayer's identity will in fact not be
disclosed" (id. at 51a (emphasis in original)).  The court accordingly
concluded that, in order for otherwise-protected data to become
eligible for disclosure under the Haskell Amendment, the statute
"requires -- in addition to the fact of nonidentification -- some
alteration by the government of the form in which the return
information was originally recorded" (id. at 56a).  The court stated
that this "reformulation will typically consist of statistical
tabulation or of some other form of combination with other data so as
to produce a unitary product that disguises the origin of its
components" (ibid.).  The court noted its disagreement, however, with
the government's submission and the Seventh Circuit's statement in
King that such a reformulation would necessarily be limited to a
statistical tabulation (id. at 55a-56a (citing King, 688 F.2d at
493)).

   The court explained that both the detailed definition set forth in
Section 6103(b)(2)(A) and the numerous exclusions set forth in Section
6110 (incorporated by reference in Section 6103(b)(2)(B)) are at odds
with petitioner's contention that the attempted excision of
identifying details suffices to make "return information" something
other than "return information," and hence disclosable to the general
public (Pet. App. 43a-45a).  The court also noted that the language of
the Haskell Amendment itself cannot be squared with petitioner's
interpretation, because the text focuses on the "form" in which the
material is found, a word that "suggests something other than merely
the absence of identifying information" (id. at 45a).  The court also
stated that the manner of the Haskell Amendment's adoption -- at the
last minute, on the Senate floor, with no discussion other than the
manager's comment that the Amendment "might not be entirely necessary"
(122 Cong. Rec. 24012 (1976)) -- strongly militates against the
notion, implicit in petitioner's argument, that the Amendment wrought
a "fundamental change" in the statutory scheme (Pet. App. 49a-50a).
The court concluded that an interpretation of the Haskell Amendment
that limits its application to material reformulated by the IRS so
that it cannot be associated with a particular taxpayer "is the
meaning most faithful to the text, most compatible with the remainder
of the legislation, and most supportable by a plausible legislative
intent" (id. at 57a).

   Judge Silberman filed an opinion concurring in part (Pet. App.
58a-75a).  He expressed the view that, because of the deference the
court should accord to the IRS's statutory interpretation, he would
agree with the Seventh Circuit's position that the exception set forth
in the Haskell Amendment is limited to "statistical tabulations."
Three judges dissented from the en banc opinion (id. at 76a-89a).
They agreed with petitioner that the redaction of identifying details
should suffice to bring material within the ambit of the Haskell
Amendment.

                          SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

   A. The text of Section 6103(b) compels rejection of the view that
"return information" ceases to be "return information," and hence must
be disclosed in response to FOIA requests, once the underlying
document has been redacted of identifying details.  The Haskell
Amendment purports to be no more than an element of the definition of
"return information," not a directive to alter and then release a
document that is indisputably "return information." Moreover, the view
that the protection for return information is limited to identifying
details would make most of the text of Section 6103(b)(2) unnecessary.
 Section 6103(b)(2)(A) defines "return information" to include, not
only "a taxpayer's identity," but more than a dozen other categories
of return-related data.  And Section 6103(b)(2)(B) brings within the
definition of return information some data, like trade-secret
information, that is plainly meant to be protected whether or not it
contains identifying details.

   Even the text of the Haskell Amendment read in isolation does not
support petitioner's view.  The mere redaction of identifying details
from a document containing "return information" does not convert that
data into "a form which cannot be associated with * * * a particular
taxpayer." The data remains individualized information, and it can be
associated with a particular taxpayer with the benefit of certain
other data.  The redaction simply reduces the probability that the
requester can make the correct association, but "redaction cannot
eliminate all risks of identifiability" (Department of Air Force v.
Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 381 (1976)).  Rather, the Haskell Amendment's use
of the phrase "in a form" shows that it was meant to cover the
situation in which the IRS has "reformulated" return information into
a new form, such as a statistical compilation.  This is the obvious
meaning of the phrase elsewhere in Section 6103.  See I.R.C. Section
6103(i)(7)(A) and (j)(4).

   Petitioner's contention that "return information" ceases to be
"return information" once identifiers are removed is also at odds with
Section 6103(f).  That provision, which concerns disclosures to
Congressional committees, plainly contemplates that material can be
"nonidentifying" and still qualify as return information, for it says
that "identifying" return information can be disclosed only to a
committee meeting in closed session.  Moreover, Section 6110 of the
Code, which concerns publication of IRS written determinations,
provides extensive procedural protections for a taxpayer before
redacted information is disclosed.  This concern over the release of
redacted material cannot be reconciled with petitioner's contention
that all confidential return information must be redacted and
disclosed -- without any notice or opportunity to be heard afforded to
the taxpayer involved.

   B. The text of Section 6103 makes clear that the committee bill
reported to the Senate did not contemplate and did not provide for
disclosure of return information upon redaction of identifying
details.  Under petitioner's interpretation, therefore, the Haskell
Amendment obviously effected a "major change" (Pet. App. 84a (Wald,
J., dissenting)) in the statute.  But the manner in which the
Amendment was enacted -- by voice vote on the floor without discussion
-- strongly suggests that it was intended to do no more than clarify
the committee proposal or make a minor correction in it.  This
conclusion is confirmed by the only two statements made on the floor
when the Amendment was passed.  Senator Haskell stated that the
purpose of the Amendment was to insure the continued disclosure of
"statistical studies and other compilations of data now prepared by
the Internal Revenue Service," and Senator Long remarked that the
Amendment "might not be entirely necessary" (122 Cong. Rec. 24012
(1976)).  Thus, the Amendment appears to have been designed only to
assure the disclosability of statistics and compilations of data akin
to those addressed by Section 6108.

   Senator Haskell also stated (122 Cong. Rec. 24012 (1976)) that his
proposal was intended "to neither enhance nor diminish" public access
to return information as compared to pre-1976 law.  But the
preexisting law, as embodied in the governing Treasury Regulations
under Section 6103, provided very little access outside the government
to return information.  The pre-1976 regulations plainly did not allow
access on anywhere near the scale that petitioner asserts is
guaranteed by the Haskell Amendment.

   C. The policy of protecting taxpayer privacy, which was Congress's
preeminent concern in enacting the 1976 amendments, would be severely
compromised under petitioner's view.  Redacted return information is
still capable of being associated with a particular taxpayer,
depending upon the independent knowledge possessed by the FOIA
requester, and the IRS has no way of determining the extent of the
requester's knowledge.  Congress determined in 1976 that the use of
return information for purposes other than tax administration should
be severely limited (see S. Rep. 94-938, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 317-318
(1976)), and it expressed no interest in having this information made
available to the population at large.  Congress's determination to
preserve the confidentiality of tax return information is similar to
the judgment it made in the case of census data, where Congress was
also concerned that essential public cooperation in providing
information be maintained through a strong guarantee of
confidentiality.

                               ARGUMENT

 SECTION 6103(a) OF THE CODE PROTECTS "RETURN INFORMATION" FROM PUBLIC
DISCLOSURE EVEN IF THE DOCUMENTS CONTAINING SUCH INFORMATION ARE
REDACTED WITH A VIEW TO CONCEALING THE TAXPAYER'S IDENTITY

                            A. Introduction

   The tax law require millions of individuals and business entities
to furnish the IRS with highly confidential information.  This
information, as well as the countless documents that are created and
collected by the IRS in connection with it, is indispensable to the
administration of the revenue laws.  The effective operation of our
tax system hinges on the submission of this data by the public with a
minimum of government compulsion.

   Congress has recognized that taxpayers' willingness to provide such
private information depends on their trust that it will remain
confidential.  Congress therefore has taken steps to guarantee that
confidentiality by statute.  Section 6103 of the Code, an extremely
detailed and complex provision, prohibits the IRS from disclosing tax
"returns" and tax "return information" except in specifically
enumerated circumstances.  This prohibition is enforced by civil and
criminal penalties.  Section 7213 makes unauthorized disclosure of
return information a felony, punishable by fine and up to five years'
imprisonment;  a federal employee convicted of this offense must be
discharged from his employment.  Section 7431 provides a civil damages
remedy against the United States or against a nonfederal employee who
violates Section 6103;  the statute permits recovery of actual
damages, with a minimum recovery of $1,000 for each act of
unauthorized disclosure.

   Section 6103's prohibition against the disclosure of tax return
information dates back to Section 11 of the Act of July 14, 1870, ch.
255, 16 Stat. 259, which prohibited the publication of "income
returns, or any part thereof, except * * * general statistics."
Similar nondisclosure provisions were subsequently enacted for other
kinds of tax returns.  These nondisclosure provisions were carried
forward into Section 55 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, ch. 2,
53 Stat. 29, and were recodified in Section 6103 of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1954, ch. 736, 68A Stat. 753.

   Prior to its amendment in 1976, Section 6103 provided that tax
returns were "public records," but that they generally were open to
inspection only upon order of the President and under regulations
prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury.  See 26 U.S.C. (1970 ed.)
6103(a)(1).  These regulations greatly restricted public access to tax
returns.  Inspection of individual returns was limited to the taxpayer
himself and to specified persons who had a material interest in the
return by virtue of their connection to the taxpayer -- his attorney,
a receiver if the taxpayer was bankrupt, or a guardian or trustee who
stood in his stead for some other reason (Treas. Reg. Section
301.6103(a)-1(c)(1)(ii) (1974)).  The regulations established
procedures regulating the inspection of tax returns by state
governments and by various components of the federal government;  such
requests were typically treated on a case-by-case basis.  See
generally S. Rep. 94-938, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 315-316 (1976).
Although the regulations made no provision for disclosure of tax
returns to interested members of the public, they did provide that
return information could be released "in the discretion of the
Secretary" (Treas. Reg. Section 301.6103(a)-1(a)(3)(i)(1974)).

   In 1976, Congress became concerned that tax return information was
being transmitted too freely by the IRS to other parts of the
government, and that such information had sometimes been used to
harass taxpayers for partisan political purposes.  Congress therefore
acted to expand the statutory protection afforded by Section 6103.  In
the Tax Reform Act of 1976, Pub. L. No. 94-455, Section 1202(a), 90
Stat. 1667, Congress substituted for the prior statute an enlarged and
far more detailed version of Section 6103.  The new Section 6103
established statutory confidentiality rules, rather than leaving to
regulation and Presidential order the circumstances under which tax
return information could be disclosed.  These changes were designed to
effectuate Congress's intent that "returns and return information
should generally be treated as confidential and not subject to
disclosure except in those limited situations delineated in the newly
amended section 6103" (S. Rep. 94-938, supra, at 318).

   Section 6103(a) as amended prohibits disclosure of "returns" and of
"return information," a new term not contained in the prior version of
the statute.  "Return" and "return information" are defined in
excruciating detail in Section 6103(b).  Section 6103 (c) through (o)
sets forth exceptions to this general rule for situations in which
Congress deemed disclosure appropriate, subject to the conditions set
forth in the statute.  These exceptions encompass disclosures to state
tax officials (Section 6103(d)), Congressional committees (Section
6103(f)), and the President (Section 6103(g)), as well as to officials
of enumerated federal agencies for tax administration purposes
(Section 6103(h)), for statistical purposes, (Section 6103(j)), and
for other legitimate purposes, such as criminal investigation (Section
6103(i)).  The statute also provides for disclosure to a limited class
of persons other than government officials -- to the taxpayer, to his
designee, and to certain persons connected with the taxpayer, such as
shareholders of a corporation or partners in a partnership, who are
deemed to have an interest in the data (Section 6103 (c) and (e)).
This latter provision closely corresponds to the pre-1976 regulation
authorizing disclosure to persons having a material interest.  See
Treas. Reg. Section 301.6103 (a)-1(c) (1974);  S. Rep. 94-938, supra,
at 339.  Finally, the statute enumerates miscellaneous types of
permissible disclosures, including disclosures, both inside and
outside the government, for tax investigation purposes (Section
6103(k)(6)), disclosures designed to correct published misstatements
of fact about a taxpayer (Section 6103(k)(3)), and disclosures
designed to aid in notifying persons entitled to tax refunds (Section
6103(m)(1)).

   The focus of this case is on the definition of "return information"
contained in Section 6104(b)(2).  That definition enumerates a long
list of data protected from disclosure, including a taxpayer's
identity, the nature, source, or amount of his income or assets, and
"any other data" prepared or collected by the Secretary with respect
to a return or the possible existence of a tax liability on the part
of any person.  During the Senate debate on the 1976 legislation,
Senator Haskell proposed that the committee's version of Section
6103(b)(2) be amended to provide at its conclusion that "such term
does not include data in a form which cannot be associated with, or
otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer." He
explained that "the purpose of this amendment is to insure that
statistical studies and other compilations of data now prepared by the
Internal Revenue Service and disclosed by it to outside parties will
continue to be subject to disclosure to the extent allowed under
present law" (122 Cong. Rec. 24012 (1976)).  Senator Long, the Senate
manager of the legislation, replied that the amendment "might not be
entirely necessary, but it might serve a good purpose.  I will be
happy to take it to conference." Ibid.  The amendment, which has come
to be known as the Haskell Amendment, was then adopted by voice vote
in the Senate and was enacted as part of the conference bill.

   It is petitioner's contention that this hastily adopted amendment
has the effect of making the entire universe of "return information,"
which on its face is protected from disclosure by Section 6103(a),
releaseable to the general public once the document containing it has
been redacted to remove certain details concerning the taxpayer's
identity.  This contention cannot withstand analysis.  It is almost
inconceivable that Congress intended, by means of a floor amendment
adopted by voice vote without debate or committee consideration, to
turn a carefully considered provision upside down and convert a
confidentiality statute into a statute requiring redaction and
disclosure.  This is particularly evident when one considers that the
1976 version of Section 6103, which indisputably was designed to
enhance the confidentiality of tax returns, would have the effect
under petitioner's theory of making available to the public tremendous
quantities of return information that had been barred from disclosure
prior to 1976.

   The text of the Haskell Amendment does not require such a bizarre
result.  To the contrary, the Amendment's language, particularly when
read in conjunction with the other portions of Section 6103 that were
carefully considered by the Senate committee, strongly supports the
court of appeals' holding that return information is not rendered
disclosable simply by redacting the underlying document to remove
identifying details from it.  Accord, Currie v. IRS, 704 F.2d 523
(11th Cir. 1983);  King v. IRS, 688 F.2d 488 (7th Cir. 1982);  contra,
Long v. IRS, 596 F.2d 362 (9th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 917
(1980).  Rather, as the court of appeals held, information that can be
associated with a particular taxpayer, either because it was supplied
by him or was connected with a determination of his tax liability, is
"return information" that must be kept confidential unless the
government has converted it into a form that no longer can be
associated with a particular taxpayer.

 B. The Text Of Section 6103 Compels Rejection Of View That
Confidential Return Information Must Be Disclosed Upon Redaction Of
The Underlying Document

   1. In ascertaining the correct interpretation of the Haskell
Admendment, it is useful to begin by examining the structure of the
statute's opening two provisions.  Section 6103(a) and (b) together
evidence a legislative design to guarantee the confidentiality of a
broad category of tax return information.  Congress's mode of drafting
those two provisions is surely at odds with petitioner's view.

   Section 6103(a) establishes the general rule that "(r)eturns and
return information shall be confidential" and shall not be disclosed
"in any manner" unless explicitly authorized by statute.  When a
request for certain records is made, Section 6103(a) suggests that the
IRS must first inquire whether the request seeks a "return" or "return
information." If it does, the statute directs the disclosure is barred
unless the request meets one of the statutorily enumerated exceptions.
 Section 6103(a) does not appear to contemplate petitioner's quite
different view that, if the request is found to seek "return
information," the IRS must redact the underlying document and then
disclose the return information, apart from the taxpayer's identity,
in its entirety.

   Petitioner's interpretation of the Haskell Amendment is likewise
hard to reeconcile with the detailed provisions of Section 6103(b).
Section 6103(b)(2)(A) defines "return information" to include "a
taxpayer's identity," the "nature, source or amount" of 14 different
tax-return-related figures (such as income, deductions, and net
worth), and "any other data" associated with the determination of any
person's liability.  Yet under petitioner's reading of statute, none
of these enumerated items, save the taxpayer's identity, is
confidential at all.  Rather, each must be disclosed after the
document on which it appears has been purged of material that would
obviously identify the taxpayer.  Petitioner's view of the statute, as
the court of appeals put it, is thus "akin to defining mankind as 'all
mammals in the world, but excluding those which are not relatively
hairless bipeds with the power of abstract reasoning'" (Pet. App.
44a).  If petitioner is right, in other words, it is hard to see what
purpose is served by the statute's detailed catalogue of "return
information," since the statute would need to say only that
taxpayer-identifying information is confidential and that all other
information is not.

   The incorrectness of petitioner's reading of the Haskell Amendment
is even more starkly illustrated by examining Section 6103(b)(2)(B).
That subsection incorporates into the definition of "return
information" portions of documents that are excluded from public
inspection under Section 6110.  That latter section, unlike Section
6103, is a disclosure statute in which Congress directed the IRS to
release redacted versions of certain "written determinations" --
private letter rulings, determination letters, and technical advise
memoranda -- as well as "background file documents" relating to such
written determinations.  Section 6110(c), however, excludes from the
public inspection requirement several kinds of data that must be
deleted before a document is released.  These include not only
identifying details about the taxpayer (Section 6110(c)(1)), but also
trade secrets (Section 6110(c)(4)) and information prepared for the
use of an agency regulating financial institutions (Section
6110(c)(6)).  Under Section 6103(b)(2)(B), this excluded information,
such as trade-secret information, is deemed "return information" even
though it may not contain any identifying details;  and the evident
statutory design is that such information should be immune from
disclosure under Section 6103 to the same extent that it is exempted
from public inspection under Section 6110.

   Under petitioner's theory, however, the Haskell Amendment would
have the effect of repealing some of the exemptions that Section
6103(b)(2)(B) had granted in the immediately preceding clause.  For
example, trade-secret information, after being redacted by the IRS to
conceal the taxpayer's identity, would apparently lie outside the
ambit of "return information" protected by Section 6103(b)(2)(B), even
though it is expressly immunized from public inspection under Section
6110.  It is hard to believe that Congress had such an odd result in
mind when it enacted the statute, particularly since it noted that
information exempted from public inspection under Section 6110 should
be "subject to the nondisclosure rules of section 6103" (S. Rep.
94-938, supra, at 311 (emphasis added)).  /7/

   2. Examination of the full text of Section 6103(a) and (b) thus
shows that Congress intended this confidentiality statute to embrace
all return information, even after identifying details are deleted
from it.  Petitioner's argument to the contrary (Br. 17-24) is based
primarily on a limited examination of the statute, focusing entirely
on the words of the Haskell Amendment read in isolation.  This
approach is altogether at odds with the text of Section 6103.  As this
Court has stated on several occasions, "'(i)n expounding a statute,
(one) must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence,
but look to the provisions of the whole law, and its object and
policy.'" Philbrook v. Glodgett, 421 U.S. 707, 713 (1975) (quoting
United States v. Heirs of Boisdore, 49 U.S. (8 How.) 113, 122 (1849)).
 But even if the Haskell Amendment is read in isolation, its text does
not support petitioner's argument that return information must be
disclosed with identifying details removed.

   First, the Haskell Amendment is part of the definition of "return
information." It is designed to help answer the question whether a
particular document in the IRS's possession falls within that defined
category, in which case its confidentiality is statutorily guaranteed.
 The Haskell Amendment does not purport to direct the IRS to alter
documents so as to render them disclosable.  Yet that is precisely the
effect that petitioner would ascribe to it.  When a FOIA request is
made for a document that indisputably contains return information,
petitioner maintains that, despite the clear mandate of Section
6103(a), the document is not protected from disclosure;  rather, the
Haskell Amendment requires that it be redacted and released.
Petitioner thus reads the Haskell Amendment, contrary to its clear
import, as a provision compelling alteration and disclosure of
protected material, not as an element of the definition that
determines whether particular material is protected to begin with.

   Besides misapprehending the Haskell Amendment's function,
petitioner's argument fails to give effect to its language.  The
Amendment provides that "return information" does not include "data in
a form which cannot be associated with, or otherwise identify * * * a
particular taxpayer" (I.R.C. Section 6103(b)(2) (emphasis added)).
But the mere redaction of a taxpayer's name and social security number
from (for example) a list of her charitable contributions does not
convert that data into a form in which it cannot be associated with
her.  The redaction may make it relatively difficult for the FOIA
requester to match the data to the right person;  that depends on how
much other knowledge the requester has.  But the data remains a list
of a particular taxpayer's charitable contributions --
quintessentially individualized information, which is plainly "in a
form which can () be associated with * * * a particular taxpayer."
Especially in light of the fact that "redaction cannot eliminate all
risks of identifiability" (Department of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S.
352, 381 (1976)), it is apparent that mere elimination of identifying
details does not meet the standard set by the Haskell Amendment.  /8/

   Indeed, the statute's use of the phrase "in a form" clearly shows
that the Haskell Amendment refers to "something other than merely the
absence of identifying information" (Pet. App. 45a).  If the only
focus of the Haskell Amendment were on the redaction of identifying
details, the phrase "in a form" would be superfluous, "as reading the
provision without it will demonstrate" (ibid.).  A more natural
wording of a statute that simply ordered redaction would be found in 5
U.S.C. 552(a)(2), which states that "an agency may delete identifying
details," or in Code Section 6103(f)(1), governing disclosure to
congressional committees, which limits disclosure of "return
information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify,
directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer." Since the phrase "in a
form" does not appear in Section 6103(f)(1), whose operative language
is otherwise identical to that of the Haskell Amendment, the inclusion
of that phrase in the Haskell Amendment cannot be thought accidental.
But petitioner's construction would effectively eliminate that phrase
from Section 6103(b)(2) by rendering it nugatory.

   A reading of the Haskell Amendmehnt that gives effect to the phrase
"in a form" is that articulated by the court of appeals -- namely,
that the statute requires, as a condition of disclosability, "some
alteration by the government of the form in which the return
information was originally recorded" (Pet. App. 56a).  Under this
reading, material that falls within the definition of "return
information" retains that status unless and until it has been
reformulated" by the IRS into a form, such as a statistical tabulation
or compilation, that no longer can be associated with a particular
taxpayer.  This reading makes sense of the full text of the Haskell
Amendment, and is supported by the other statutory contexts in which
analogous language appears.  /9/ The Haskell Amendment thus
establishes that material categorized as "return information" is not
necessarily protected from disclosure forever;  it can lose its
protected status, but only upon reformulation, not upon simple
redaction of identifying details.

   Finally, it is significant that the Haskell Amendment is appended
only to the definition of "return information" in Section 6103(b)(2);
it does not modify the definition of "return" in Section 6103(b)(1).
This placement is most peculiar if petitioner's reading of the
Amendment is correct.  If Congress thought that its taxpayer privacy
concerns were adequately served by the redaction of identifying
details, it is not apparent why it would not have made tax returns
themselves, as well as return information, disclosable upon redaction.
 Yet it is manifest from the statute that "returns" are not
disclosable, redacted or not.  The protection afforded returns in
Section 6103(b)(1), moreover, would be eviscerated by petitioner's
construction of the Haskell Amendment, because all the information
contained on a return would still have to be redacted and disclosed to
a requester under Section 6103(b)(2).  For example, a schedule of
charitable contributions attached to a Form 1040 is included within
the definition of "return" in Section 6103(b)(1), and hence would not
be disclosable upon redaction even under petitioner's theory.  Yet
that identical list, if it were copied onto an examining agent's
report, would on petitioner's view have to be redacted and disclosed
in response to an FOIA request.  /10/

   3. Petitioner's reading of the Haskell Amendment is also difficult
to square with other provisions enacted in 1976 that delineate the
situations in which Congress found disclosure to be appropriate.
Petitioner reads the confidentiality protection of Section 6103 as
limited to identifying information.  If that is so, then the extensive
list of exceptions contained in Section 6103(c) through (o), which
enumerate the instances of permissible disclosure, are necessarily
addressed only to return information that discloses identifying
details.  But it is clear from the statute that this was not
Congress's understanding of Section 6103.

   Section 6103(f), for example, describes the conditions under which
returns and return information may be disclosed to committees of
Congress.  Section 6103(f)(1) provides that, upon written request by
the appropriate committee chairman:

      the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or
      return information specified in such request, except that any
      return or return information which can be associated with, or
      otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular
      taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting
      in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise
      consents in writing to such disclosure.

   This subsection obviously distinguishes between "nonidentifying"
return information, which may be supplied to a committee in open
session, and "identifying" return information, which may be supplied
to a committee only in closed executive session.  See also I.R.C.
Section 6103(f)(2), (4)(A) and (4)(B).  As the court of appeals stated
(Pet. App. 46a), these provisions plainly contemplate the existence of
"return information" that is nonidentifying.  That understanding is
completely inconsistent with petitioner's interpretation of the
Haskell Amendment, under which return information rendered
nonidentifying by redaction is no longer "return information" at all.

   In enacting Section 6103, moreover, Congress's concern over
disclosure was not restricted solely to the danger that particular
information would be associated with a particular person to the
detriment of taxpayer privacy.  Section 6103(c) and (e)(7), for
example, deals with requests for return information by the taxpayer,
his designee, or a person having a material interest by virtue of his
connection to the taxpayer.  Because such a request comes in essence
from the taxpayer's alter ego, any resulting disclosure by the IRS
obviously risks no invasion of privacy.  Congress nonetheless provided
that the IRS need not comply with such a first-party request if
disclosure would "seriously impair federal tax administration"
(Section 6103(c) and (e)(7)).  Under petitioner's interpretation of
the Haskell Amendment, however, a third-party requester could obtain
access to the same information, so long as identifying details are
removed, without giving the IRS an opportunity to withhold disclosure
on the ground that it would impair federal tax administration.
Petitioner's theory thus leads to the untenable result of making
return information less accessible to a taxpayer's agent than to a
member of the general public.

   Petitioner's interpretation of the Haskell Amendment is also
difficult to reconcile with Section 6110 of the Code, which was
enacted in 1976 contemporaneously with the Haskell Amendment.  Section
6110 is a disclosure statute that directs the IRS to release redacted
versions of IRS written determinations and related background
documents.  After redaction to remove identifying details and other
portions deemed confidential (Section 6110(c)), these documents are
generally made available for public inspection without the need for
any special request, and they are published in an index that is
available to anyone.  In enacting Section 6110, however, Congress
recognized that redaction by the IRS could not be relied upon to
guarantee taxpayer privacy in every case, and it therefore established
additional protections for taxpayers.  Section 6110(f) accordingly
requires the IRS, before releasing a written determination, to notify
the taxpayer of the impending disclosure.  If the taxpayer believes
that the disclosure should not be made or that additional deletions
are necessary, he is given the opportunity to seek administrative
relief and, if necessary, file a petition in the Tax Court to litigate
the issue before the IRS can release the documents under Section 6110.
 /11/

   If the petitioner's interpretation of the Haskell Amendment is
correct, therefore, Congress has established more restrictions on
disclosure and more procedural protections for taxpayers in connection
with the release of IRS written determinations under Section 6110 than
it has established for the release of confidential return information
covered by Section 6103.  But such an approach would surely be
perverse.  As the court of appeals noted (Pet. App. 48a), there are
special reasons for making IRS rulings and other written
determinations public -- namely, to avoid the development of "secret
law." See S. Rep. 94-938, supra, at 305-306.  No such rationale
supports the publicity of confidential return information.

   On the other hand, there are special reasons for keeping return
information private, for it may cover such sensitive matters as
audits, criminal investigations, and a vast panoply of personal
financial information.  Written determination disclosable under
Section 6110, by contrast, often will involve less sensitive data,
such as material that a taxpayer voluntarily supplies to the IRS in
the hope of obtaining a ruling.  Thus, the significant procedural
protections erected by Congress in Section 6110 that must precede
release of a redacted written determination strongly suggest that
Congress did not intend redaction to be sufficient, without more, to
make the entire universe of return information disclosable to the
general public.  /12/

 C. The Legislative History of Section 6103 Shows That It Was Not
Intended To Authorize The Redaction And Disclosure Of All Return
Information

   1. The background of the 1976 legislation makes clear that Congress
did not intend the statute to authorize the redaction and disclosure
of confidential return information to the general public.  As noted
earlier (page 17, supra), the Haskell Amendment was introduced during
Senate floor debate and was adopted by voice vote without discussion.
The only comment made by anyone other than Senator Haskell was Senator
Long's statement that he would be happy to take the Amendment to
conference even though it "might not be entirely necessary" (122 Cong.
Rec. 24012 (1976)).  Neither Conference Report makes any reference to
the Amendment.  See H.R. Conf. Rep. 94-1515, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.
(1976);  S. Conf. Rep. 94-1236, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (1976).  The
circumstances of the Amendment's adoption thus belie any suggestion
that it was meant to effect a major change in Section 6103 as reported
by the committee.  Rather, the manner in which the Amendment was
adopted indicates that Congress intended at most to fill an interstice
in the bill or to effect a relatively minor clarification.

   The fact of the matter is, however, that the Haskell Amendment as
interpreted by petitioner would have turned the statute upside down.
Petitioner maintains that all return information must be disclosed in
response to an FOIA request, so long as identifying data are removed.
In the absence of the Haskell Amendment, it is undisputed that these
billions of documents would be fully protected from disclosure under
Section 6103, apart from the limited exceptions specifically
authorized by that section.  Indeed, the dissent in the court of
appeals recognized, with some understatement, that the Haskell
Amendment, under its and petitioner's interpretation, worked a "major
change" in the statute (Pet. App. 84a (Wald, J., dissenting)).

   Petitioner nonetheless denies (Br. 26) that the Haskell Amendment
effected a "fundamental change" in the committee proposal, theorizing
that it had been Congress's intention all along to compel the
redaction and disclosure of return information, even though the
language of the committee bill did not so indicate.  But this
contention cannot be squared with the provisions of the committee
proposal.  As we have pointed out earlier (pages 20-21 and 27, supra),
various subsections of Section 6103 as originally proposed, such as
the provision governing disclosure to congressional committees
(Section 6103(f)) and the provision defining "return information" to
include material excised before publication of written determinations
(Section 6103(b)(2)(B)), clearly presuppose the existence of
nonidentifying return information.  And these portions of the statute
cannot be dismissed as mere "superfluit(ies)" that are "fully
explainable by the legislative process which occurred here, with the
Haskell Amendment being appended to an otherwise fully-drafted
statute" (Pet. Br. 36 & n.33).  The subsections to which we refer were
part of the carefully crafted committee bill, not accidents of a hasty
floor amendment.  And these subsections conclusively demonstrate that
the committee proposal did not contemplate that "return information"
would cease to be "return information" upon mere redaction of
identifying details.  Contrary to petitioner's statement, therefore,
its position does require acceptance of the proposition that the
Haskell Amendment effected a "fundamental change" in the committee
bill.  As we have shown, it is exceedingly unlikely that Congress
would have made such a fundamental change in the cavalier fashion
evidenced by the Haskell Amendment's adoption on the Senate floor.

   2. The true purpose of the Haskell Amendment, as shown by Senator
Haskell's remarks when introducing it, was to accomplish a minor
clarification of the committee bill.  He stated (122 Cong. Rec. 24012
(1976)):

         (T)he purpose of this amendment is to insure that statistical
      studies and other compilations of data now prepared by the
      Internal Revenue Service and disclosed by it to outside parties
      will continue to be subject to disclosure to the extent allowed
      under present law.  Thus the Internal Revenue Service can
      continue to release for research purposes statistical studies
      and compilations of data, such as the tax model, which do not
      identify individual taxpayers.

         The definition of "return information" was intended to
      neither enhance nor diminish access now obtainable under the
      Freedom of Information Act to statistical studies and
      compilations of data by the Internal Revenue Service.  Thus, the
      addition by the Internal Revenue Service of easily deletable
      identifying information to the type of statistical study or
      compilation of data which, under its current practice, has been
      subject to disclosure, will not prevent disclosure of such study
      or compilation under the newly amended section 6103.  In such an
      instance, the identifying information would be deleted and
      disclosure of the statistical study or compilation of data be
      made.

   In short, the Haskell Amendment was unambiguously directed at
"statistical studies and compilations of data," not at the sort of
particularized return information, contained in millions of individual
taxpayer files, that petitioner seeks here.

   Section 6108 of the Code has long required the IRS to publish
certain "statistics * * * of income," now described in Section
6108(a).  Compare 26 U.S.C. (1970 ed.) 6108.  Section 6108(b) of the
Code, newly enacted in 1976 (Pub. L. No. 94-455, Section 1202(b), 90
Stat. 1685), authorizes the IRS, upon written request, to "make
special statistical studies and compilations involving return
information (as defined in Section 6103(b)(2)) and to furnish to (the
requester) transcripts of any such special statistical study or
compilation." Section 6108(c), likewise newly enacted
contemporaneously with the Haskell Amendment, provides that "(n)o
publication * * * required or authorized by (Section 6108) shall in
any manner permit the statistics, study, or any information so
published * * * to be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly
or indirectly, a particular taxpayer."

   While Section 6108 requires the IRS to publish some statistics, and
while it authorizes the IRS in its discretion to publish others, it
does not specifically say what the IRS is to do with an FOIA request
for statistical information not covered by that Section.  The Haskell
Amendment was evidently designed to fill this lacuna and ensure that
Section 6103 would not be read to mandate denial of such a request.
Thus, so long as the statistical information or compilation of data is
in a form that cannot be associated with a particular taxpayer, even
if its source is return information and even if its disclosure is not
specifically authorized or required by Section 6108, the Haskell
Amendment provides that its disclosure is not prohibited by Section
6103.

   This interpretation of the Haskell Amendment accords with its
language and with Senator Haskell's explanation of its purpose.
Indeed, in referring to "statistical studies and compilations" --
words borrowed verbatim from the contemporaneously enacted Section
6108(b) -- Senator Haskell clearly indicated that he had in mind
generalized studies of the sort mentioned in Section 6108.  An
interpretation of the Haskell Amendment that limits it to statistical
reformulations likewise accords with the Senate manager's reaction to
the proposal, namely, that "(i)t might not be entirely necessary, but
it might serve a good purpose" (122 Cong. Rec. 24012 (1976)).  In
short, the genesis of this floor amendment reveals that it was meant
to clarify the relationship between Sections 6103 and 6108 and to
backstop the latter Section's authorization for disclosure of IRS
statistical studies.  The legislative history simply does not support
petitioner's grandiose expansion of the Haskell Amendment into a
freedom-of-information provision covering all tax return information.
/13/

   3. Petitioner's reading of the Haskell Amendment is further
undermined by examination of the relevant law as it stood prior to
1976.  It is undisputed that the purpose of the 1976 amendments was to
restrict the dissemination of tax return information.  Congress
expressed concern that the preexisting level of disclosure had
"breache(d) a reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of the
American citizen," and it questioned whether return information
"should be used for any purposes other than tax administration" (S.
Rep. 94-938, supra, at 317).  Congress stated that it had carefully
"reviewed each of the areas in which returns and return information
are now subject to disclosure" (id. at 318), including the area of
statistical studies, where publication had long been authorized.  See
26 U.S.C. (1970 ed.) 6108.  Nothing in the statute or its legislative
history suggests that Congress meant to expand disclosure of return
information to include data that had theretofore been confidential.
Indeed, Senator Haskell in introducing his Amendment eschewed any such
purpose, stating that "(t)he definition of 'return information' was
intended to neither enhance nor diminish access now obtainable under
the Freedom of Information Act to statistical studies and compilations
of data by the Internal Revenue Service" (122 Cong. Rec. 24012
(1976)).

   It is therefore apparent that the Haskell Amendment should not be
read to require disclosure of material that would have been treated as
confidential under the pre-1976 version of Section 6103.  Yet that is
precisely petitioner's contention.  The regulations that governed
pre-1976 disclosures were quite restrictive concerning disclosure to
the general public, as opposed to other government agencies.  Apart
from the Commissioner's general authority to release return
information in his discretion, the regulations made no provision at
all for disclosures to persons who lacked a material interest in the
information by virtue of their relationship to the taxpayer.  Compare
Treas. Reg. Section 301.6103(a)-1(a)(3)(i)(b) (1974) with id. Section
301.6103(a)-1(c)(1)(ii).  Under these regulations, petitioner would
not have been entitled to the documents at issue here prior to 1976,
even after redaction, and there is no reason to suppose that Congress
in 1976 sought to bring about the opposite result.  Congress was well
aware of the scope of disclosure authorized by the pre-1976
regulations (see S. Rep. 94-938, supra, at 315-319, 323-324, 326-327,
331, 334-335, 339), and it actually used these regulations as the
framework for its inquiry into what disclosures were permissible at
the time (id. at 318 n.6).  In light of Congress's clear intent to
restrict rather than expland disclosure of return information when it
amended Section 6103, the Haskell Amendment cannot plausibly be
construed to require the redaction and disclosure of all return
information to any requesting member of the public.

   4. Taking a rather different view of the 1976 legislative history,
petitioner argues (Br. 24-26) that the "sole focus" of the 1976
amendments was preventing the IRS from making excessive disclosures of
return information to other government agencies.  Petitioner asserts
that Congress was unconcerned about disclosure to the general public,
and that the Haskell Amendment aimed to guarantee that return
information would be released to the requesting public once it had
been redacted.

   This argument is misconceived.  The overriding purpose of the new
Section 6103 was to establish that "returns and return information
should generally be treated as confidential" (S. Rep. 94-938, supra,
at 319).  Either return information is "confidential" or it is not,
and it is not confidential if it is released to the population at
large.  Congress posed the question whether return information "should
be used for any purposes other than tax administration" (id. at 317
(emphasis added)), and its answer was that such information should not
be used "except in those limited situations delineated in the newly
amended section 6103 where the committee decided that disclosure was
warranted" (id. at 318).  Congress was aware that pre-1976 regulations
severely restricted the public's access to return information, and, to
the extent it focused on disclosure to the public, Congress decided
that such disclosure should be quite limited, largely in accordance
with pre-1976 law.  See I.R.C. Section 6103(e) (governing disclosure
to persons having a material interest);  see generally S. Rep. 94-938,
supra, at 339-342 ("limited disclosures" allowed only where Congress
determined that reasons "outweighed any possible invasion of the
taxpayer's privacy";  eliminating preexisting authority to disclose
whether a person has filed a return).  Since Section 6103 on its face
bars all disclosure of return information except where expressly
permitted, it was hardly necessary for Congress to concern itself at
length with disclosure to the general public.  Section 6103, after
all, is a confidentiality statute, not a government-in-the-sunshine
law.  /14/

 D. The Policies Underlying Section 6103 Support The Court Of Appeals'
Conclusion That Redaction Of Identifying Details Is Not Enough To
Permit Disclosure Of Return Information

   1. Congress acted in 1976 to strengthen the confidentiality
protection of Section 6103 because it wanted to assure taxpayers that
the information they voluntarily provide to the IRS will not be
further disclosed except in the extremely limited situations
specifically enumerated in the statute.  That overriding policy of
protecting taxpayer privacy would be undermined if all return
information were required to be disclosed upon removal of identifying
details.  First, dissemination of information concerning a person's
private financial affairs may reasonably be viewed by a taxpayer as
some intrusion into his privacy even if he is not identified.
Moreover, as this Court has noted, "redaction cannot eliminate all
risks of identifiability" (Department of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S.
at 381).

   The risk of identification despite redaction is particularly
troublesome in the case of a FOIA request for tax return information.
Tax returns often contain such publicly available information as
compensation paid to corporate executives, details of real estate
transactions, facts appearing in marriage and divorce records, and
data contained in court files.  If an FOIA requester learns such facts
from another source, he may well be able to associate information
released to him by the IRS with a particular taxpayer, even though the
released information itself contains no obvious identifiers.  Forcing
the IRS to base disclosure decisions on a guess about the scope of the
requester's knowledge would produce a risky and unworkable system.
And even if it could make extensive inquiry into public sources of
information, the IRS could never absolutely guarantee taxpayer
privacy.  As the Seventh Circuit has observed (King v. IRS, 688 F.2d
at 491-492), the interpretation advanced by petitioner would surely
lead to disclosure in some instances to a requester who did have
sufficient knowledge to associate the released information with a
taxpayer.  /15/

   Since Congress in passing the 1976 amendments to Section 6103 was
concerned above all with taxpayer privacy, it can scarcely be thought
to have invited this risk of exposing an individual's confidential
financial afffairs.  It is much more likely that Congress was prepared
to err on the side of caution.  The court of appeals' "reformulation"
test is thoroughly consistent with that legislative tendency, for it
provides "added assurance that a taxpayer's identity will in fact not
be disclosed" (Pet. App. 51a).  /16/

   2. Petitioner argues (Br. 39-42) that redaction and disclosure of
return information are necessary to further the general purposes of
the Freedom of Information Act.  The Freedom of Information Act,
however, by its terms "does not apply to matters that are * * *
specifically exempted from disclosure by statute" (5 U.S.C.
552(b)(3)), and petitioner does not challenge the court of appeals'
holding that Section 6103 of the Code "gives rise to an exemption
under (FOIA) Exemption 3." Pet. App. 30a.  Since the instant case
concerns the proper construction of a taxpayer privacy statute, the
FOIA's general policy favoring disclosure is at most tangentially
involved here.

   The primary thrust of the FOIA, moreover, is to expose government
operations to public scrutiny and, in particular, to prevent the
development of "secret law." It was in fact this latter consideration
that prompted Congress's 1976 enactment of Section 6110, relating to
publication of IRS written determinations.  But these considerations
have little to do with the confidentiality of "return information"
described in Section 6103(b)(2)(A).  That material consists primarily
of personal information submitted by taxpayers or material generated
by the IRS in connection with individual returns.  This type of
information sheds no light on agency practices and policies, and the
goals of the FOIA are not advanced by its disclosure.  The dominant
policy consideration in assessing when and if such data can be
released must be the consideration repeatedly voiced by Congress in
1976 -- preserving the confidentiality of tax return information.

   By the same token, there is no merit to petitioner's objection (Br.
39) that the court of appeals' interpretation of the Haskell Amendment
"effectively immunizes the IRS from most FOIA requests." Many types of
documents prepared by the IRS, which reflect the development of IRS
administrative practices and policies, are within the ambit of FOIA
and are clearly disclosable.  See, e.g., Taxation With Representation
Fund v. IRS, 646 F.2d 666 (D.C. Cir. 1981).  Even absent an FOIA
request, a vast universe of IRS documents -- such as private letter
rulings, technical advise memoranda, determination letters, office
memoranda, and general counsel memoranda -- is routinely made
available by the IRS to tax practitioners in public reading rooms and
through reproduction in various commercial services.  The IRS has
reported that, for calendar year 1986, Section 6103 was invoked as a
bar to disclosure in fewer than 25% of the FOIA requests received.
/17/

   3. Congress has made a judgment that taxpayer return information is
material of an unusually private nature and that it should be
protected accordingly.  This approach is hardly unprecedented.  On the
contrary, return information in this respect is analogous to census
data, which are absolutely protected from public disclosure despite
the general provisions of the FOIA.  In Baldrige v. Shapiro, 455 U.S.
345 (1982), this Court rejected the contention that the statutory
prohibition on disclosure of census data was inapplicable if
identifying details were redacted.  Noting that "an accurate census
depends in large part on public cooperation" (id. at 354), the Court
concluded that all raw census data are protected from disclosure,
whether or not the data can be associated with a particular person.

   The same conclusion must be reached here.  Return information is,
if anything, more private and sensitive than census data.  Like the
census, our tax system depends upon citizens' willingness to supply
these data voluntarily.  As with the census, Congress has established
a statutory prohibition against disclosure of return information,
subject to limited statutory exceptions.  It would frustrate the
intent of Congress to transform this prohibition into a mandate for
disclosure upon redaction of identifying details, and the court of
appeals correctly rejected petitioner's atempt to to do.

                              CONCLUSION

   The judgment of the court of appeals should be affirmed.

   Respectfully submitted.

   CHARLES FRIED

      Solicitor General

   JAMES B. MANN

      Acting Assistant Attorney General

   ALBERT G. LAUBER, JR.

      Deputy Solicitor General

   ALAN I. HOROWITZ

      Assistant to the Solicitor General

   JONATHAN S. COHEN

   MURRAY S. HORWITZ

      Attorneys

   JULY 1987

   /1/ Unless otherwise noted, all statutory references are to the
Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C.), as amended (the Code or I.R.C.).

   /2/ This language was introduced by Senator Haskell on the Senate
floor as an amendment to the provision of the 1976 Tax Reform Act,
Pub. L. No. 94-455, Section 1202(a), 90 Stat. 1667, that is now
codified in Section 6103.  See 122 Cong. Rec. 24012 (1976);  Pet. App.
43a.

   /3/ Specifically, the FOIA request sought "(c)opies of all records,
correspondence or any form of information relating to and that might
be characterized by the names Scientology, Church of Scientology,
Hubbard, Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard, Mary Sue Hubbard, located in the
offices or personal areas of * * * (specified) Internal Revenue
officials," as well as "(c)opies of all information relating to or
containing the names of Scientology, Church of Scientology, any
specific Scientology church or entity identified by (or) containing
the words Scientology, Hubbard and/or Dianetics in their names, L. Ron
Hubbard or Mary Sue Hubbard in the form of a written record,
correspondence, document, memorandum, form, computor (sic) tape(s),
computor (sic) program or microfilm;  which is contained in the
following systems of records, including but not limited to those
located at the National Office, Regional Offices, Service Centers,
District Offices or local IRS offices" (long list identifying IRS
records systems omitted) (J.A. 19a-20a).

   /4/ In January 1981 the IRS filed a response (J.A. 47a-57a) to the
administrative appeal in which it stated that it had limited its
search to records of petitioner itself because the FOIA request did
not contain authorization to disclose information pertaining to any
other taxpayers named therein (id. at 48a).  The search was limited
geographically to the IRS National Office in Washington, D.C., and to
IRS field offices in Covington, Kentucky and Los Angeles, California
(id. at 48a-49a).  The response also stated that all of the requested
documents relating to a pending Tax Court case that had not previously
been released were exempt from disclosure under 26 U.S.C. 6103(e)(7)
on the ground that disclosure would seriously impair federal tax
administration (J.A. 53a-54a).  The IRS further explained that it was
releasing in full some documents acquired subsequent to the
preparation of an index in connection with the Tax Court case but that
it was withholding portions of "other National Office documents on
(the) grounds that they were outside the scope of the appeal, that
their disclosure would cause a clearly unwarranted invasion of
privacy, see 5 U.S.C. Section 552(b)(6), or that they reflected return
information of third parties, see 26 U.S.C. Section 6103(a)" (Pet.
App. 26a-27a;  see J.A. 55a-57a).

   /5/ That opinion was subsequently amended by an order filed July
11, 1986 (Pet. App. 90a-93a).

   /6/ The panel opinion resolved a number of issues, some favorably
to petitioner and others favorably to the government.  The panel held
that the disclosure provisions of Section 6103 do not supersede the
FOIA, but rather qualify as a statute restricting disclosure within
the ambit of FOIA Exemption 3, 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(3) (Pet. App. 27a-30a).
 The panel sustained the IRS's geographical restriction on its search
(id. at 30a-31a), but held that the district court "erred in accepting
the IRS's blanket assertion that all information responsive to
(petitioner's) request in files not relating to the California Church
was exempt from disclosure" (id. at 34a).  The panel remanded the case
for further proceedings in which the IRS would be required "either to
conduct a new search for information responsive to the Church's
request that refers to third parties or establish through affidavits
that all information about third parties in identifiable files * * *
is generically protectged by Section 6103" (id. at 36a).  Petitioner
did not seek review of the panel's decision insofar as that decision
was unfavorable to it, and we did not seek review of the panel
decision insofar as it was unfavorable to the government.

   /7/ Indeed, if petitioner's reading of the Haskell Amendment is
correct, it was hardly necessary for Congress to have troubled with
Section 6110 at all, since the written determinations referred to
therein would be disclosable after redaction under Section 6103.
Essentially, as amicus John Neufeld candidly admits (see Br. 13-14),
petitioner seeks to turn the confidentiality provisions of Section
6103 into a disclosure statute akin to Section 6110.  That is plainly
inconsistent with the intent of the Congress that simultaneously
drafted two such disparate provisions.

   /8/ The Haskell Amendment speaks in absolute terms;  it permits the
IRS to release only "data in a form which cannot be associated with or
otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer"
(122 Cong. Rec. 24012 (1976) (emphasis added).  The statute by its
terms does not permit release of information based merely on a
judgment that it is unlikely to be associated with a particular
taxpayer.  Accordingly, the language of the Haskell Amendment dictates
that information must not be released if there is any possibility that
it can be associated with a particular taxpayer.

   /9/ As the court of appeals noted (Pet. App. 51a-52a), the language
of the Haskell Amendment, including the phrase "in a form," occurs in
two other places in Section 6103.  Section 6103(j), which is entitled
"Statistical Use," permits IRS disclosure to specified agencies for
the purpose of preparing statistics and economic forecasts.  Section
6103(j)(4), entitled "Anonymous Form," provides that no person who
receives information under Subsection (j) "shall disclose such return
or return information * * * except in a form which cannot be
associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a
particular taxpayer." In this context, it is manifest that the phrase
"in a form" contemplates reformulation of the return information into
statistics or some other composite product.  By the same token,
Section 6103(i)(7)(A), which prohibits disclosure of return
information furnished to the General Accounting Office for the purpose
of conducting audits,, unless it is "in a form" that cannot be
associated with a particular taxpayer, also appears to contemplate
reformulation of the information into a new composite product, such as
an audit report.

   /10/ Whereas the placement of the Haskell Amendment makes little
sense under petitioner's theory, it makes perfect sense under the
court of appeals' view that the Amendment presupposes reformulation
rather than redaction.  Section 6103(b)(1) speaks of tax returns and
other physical documents, which cannot be "reformulated," so that no
purpose would be served by having the Haskell Amendment apply to it.
Section 6103(b)(2), by contrast, speaks of "return information," which
can be reformulated into a new form that will ensure protection of
taxpayer privacy.

   /11/ Congress explicitly recognized in Section 6110 that mere
redaction of identifying details does not infallibly protect against
intrusions into taxpayer privacy.  Thus, even though the statute
provides that identifying details must be removed before written
determinations are made public (Section 6110(c)(1)), the statute in
addition requires the Secretary to delete any "information the
disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy" (Section 6110(c)(5)).  See S. Rep. 94-938, supra, at
309.

   /12/ To the extent there is any uncertainty about the meaning of
the statute, of course, the interpretation of the agency charged with
administering it is entitled to deference.  See, e.g., Chevron U.S.A.
Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837, 844-845 (1984);  Udall v. Tallman, 380
U.S. 1, 16 (1965).  The IRS has been charged with the interpretation
of rules governing disclosure of return information since long before
the Haskell Amendment was enacted.  Indeed, disclosure of such
information before 1976 was governed largely by regulations issued by
the IRS.  Because the Haskell Amendment was designed to do no more
than authorize the IRS to "continue to release * * * statistical
studies and compilations of data" (122 Cong. Rec. 24012 (1976) (Sen.
Haskell)), the IRS's interpretation is clearly entitled to deference.

   Petitioner asserts (Br. 32) that the IRS's position has not been
consistent because it originally responded to the Church's FOIA
request in this case by supplying some documents with identifiers
removed.  But this response did not reflect agreement with
petitioner's interpretation of the Haskell Amendment.  The documents
to which petitioner refers (J.A. 44a-45a, 56a) state that all
third-party return information was deleted prior to disclosure, not,
as petitioner's interpretation would require, that the return
information was being disclosed with identifying details removed.
Petitioner also adverts (Br. 31-32) to some congressional testimony by
Acting Commissioner Williams in 1977.  See Treasury, Postal Service,
and General Government Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1978:  Hearings
Before a Subcomm. of the House Comm. on Appropriations, 95th Cong.,
1st Sess. Pt. 1, at 442-446 (1977).  That testimony concerned an IRS
proposal, antedating the enactment of the 1976 amendments to Section
6103, to publish a list of inquiries made by Congressmen to the IRS,
without disclosure of the identity of the taxpayer to whom the
inquiries pertained.  Because such a list would have been a
reformulation of data in the original inquiries, it is unclear why
petitioner regards this testimony as reflecting IRS adoption of
petitioner's interpretation of the Haskell Amendment.  In any event,
the IRS subsequently decided not to go forward with the proposal,
largely because of its concern that the disclosure would be of
questionable legality under the new Section 6103.

   /13/ Petitioner maintains (Br. 27-29) that Senator Haskell's
reference to the "tax model" (122 Cong. Rec. 24012 (1976)) shows that
his Amendment was designed to require redaction and disclosure of
return information.  The "tax model" is a compilation of data on
computer tape that the IRS began making available to the public for
statistical purposes in 1962, pursuant to 26 U.S.C. (1970 ed.) 7515.
It is called a "model" because it is meant to provide a cross-section
of family incomes in the Nation as a whole.  Some of the fields on the
tape reflect data taken from tax returns;  many other fields reflect
computed amounts not taken directly from a return.  See IRS Pub. No.
1023, General Description, 1976 Individual Tax Model File (Mar. 1979).
 Because the tax model prior to 1981 contained raw return data, it
could theoretically have been manipulated to display various items of
return information of a particular taxpayer, albeit without
identifying details.  (The IRS alleviated this problem in 1981 by
"blurring" the data, i.e., replacing original data values with
averages of several values;  therefore, the tax model today no longer
can be manipulated to produce a series of return items relating to the
same taxpayer.  See generally Strudler, Oh and Scheuren, Protection of
Taxpayer Confidentiality With Respect to the Tax Model, 1986 Am.
Statistical Ass'n Sec. on Survey Research Methods at 375-381.)
Petitioner accordingly argues that, if Senator Haskell intended to
preserve taxpayer access to the tax model, which could have been used
in 1976 to generate nonidentifying return information, Congress must
have intended to require disclosure of all nonidentifying return
information.

   Senator Haskell's innocuous reference to the tax model simply will
not bear the weight that petitioner puts on it.  First, even if one
assumes that Senator Haskell and Congress were intimately conversant
with the details of what information could be extracted from the tax
model's computer tape, it does not follow that they intended to remove
the cloak of confidentiality from all return information.  Disclosure
of data from a sample generated by the IRS does not pose the same
privacy concerns as disclosure of a particular taxpayer's return
information, even if redacted, in response to a specific request.  In
any event, there is no reason to assume that Senator Haskell or the
rest of Congress had any idea that the tax model could be manipulated
in the manner that petitioner has now discovered to have been
possible.  It is more reasonable to assume that Senator Haskell
understood the tax model to exemplify the type of nonindividualized
information that was the Amendment's stated object, viz., "statistical
studies and compilations of data." Hence, Senator Haskell's naked
reference to the tax model does not in any way refute the overwhelming
evidence that Congress did not intend to require redaction and
disclosure of the return information whose confidentiality is
guaranteed by Section 6103(a).

   /14/ Petitioner relies (Br.29-31) on a statement in the legislative
history of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, Pub. L. No. 94-34,
Section 701, 95 Stat. 340, to support its reading of the Haskell
Amendment.  Apart from the fact that such subsequent legislative
history ordinarily is entitled to little weight (see, e.g., Oscar
Mayer Co. v. Evans, 441 U.S. 750, 758 (1979);  United States v.
Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U.S. 157, 170 (1968)), the meaning that
petitioner ascribes to this statement is mistaken.  Applying its
interpretation of the Haskell Amendment, the Ninth Circuit had held in
Long v. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 646 F.2d 1310, vacated and
remanded, 454 U.S. 934 (1981), vacated and remanded, 671 F.2d 1229
(1982), that the IRS was required to disclose to a public requester
certain information concerning its criteria for selecting returns for
audit.  Congress responded immediately to the threat of such a
disastrous disclosure by amending Section 6103 to reverse this
decision.  See I.R.C. Section 6103(b)(2) (last sentence).  The
Conference Report explains that Congress was acting to protect the
confidentiality of audit standards, but otherwise was making no change
in the existing law under Section 6103.  See H.R. Conf. Rep. 97-215,
97th Cong., 1st Sess. 264 (1981).  Petitioner seizes upon this
statement to support its interpretation of the Haskell Amendment,
theorizing that, if "Congress (had) thought that the Long decisions
had wrongly interpreted the Haskell Amendment, it would have so
stated" (Pet. Br. 30).  Petitioner's effort to capitalize on what a
subsequent Congress did not say about a judicial decision that it was
hastily acting to overrule is quite absurd.  As the Seventh Circuit
stated in rejecting this identical contention in King v. IRS, 688 F.2d
at 494:

      We are unable to draw from these comments the inference that
      Congress intended to affirm the "identity test" interpretation
      of Section 6103.  The comments, read in context, do not affirm
      the correctness of the very decision Congress was repudiating,
      but rather merely state that the rest of Section 6103 is not
      changed by the amendment.  What marginal relevance this
      legislative history possesses in fact cuts against the
      plaintiff's interpretation.  By reiterating that statistical
      data and other non-return information will remain available to
      the extent of prior law, the Committee Report creates the
      negative implication that nonstatistical data and return
      information were protected under prior law, and remain so under
      the 1981 amendment.

   /15/ The IRS of course, is required to redact "written
determinations" and "background file documents" when making those
records available for public inspection under Section 6110.  Before
disclosing such documents, however, the IRS must give the taxpayer
whose privacy is implicated 60 days' notice "of intention to disclose
(the documents), together with the proposed deletions." I.R.C. Section
6110(f)(3)(A) (emphasis added).  The taxpayer is thus afforded an
opportunity to demonstrate -- in court if necessary -- that the
proposed deletions are inadequate to protect his privacy.  In
practice, the IRS usually asks the taxpayer who requests the written
determination to propose deletions in the first instance.  These
procedural protections against inadvertent identification are not
available under Section 6103.

   /16/ The problem of inadvertent disclosure is well illustrated by
Willamette Industries, Inc. v. United States, 689 F.2d 865 (9th Cir.
1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1052 (1983), where the court of appeals
held that the IRS was required to disclose, with identifying details
removed,, certain return information from the files of individual
taxpayers that concerned valuation of timber in five designated
geographic areas.  The forestry industry is highly specialized, and
the IRS had no way of knowing whether Willamette, a leading member of
that industry, had sufficient independent knowledge to enable it to
associate with a particular taxpayer some or all of the valuation data
disclosed.  The court of appeals did not dispute that the disclosure
it ordered could lead to identification by "a knowledgable person in
the industry," but it nonetheless ordered disclosure because there
assertedly was "no specific evidence * * * as to how often this danger
of indirect identification might exist" (689 F.2d at 868).  This
grudging approach to the confidentiality rule of Section 6103 flies in
the face of Congress's intent to preserve taxpayer privacy.  Because
the data disclosed was in a form that could be associated with another
taxpayer, there was a very real risk that the requester could so
associate it, and the data should have remained confidential under a
correct interpretation of the Haskell Amendment.

   /17/ See IRS Report to the Department of Treasury Concerning the
Freedom of Information Act Annual Report to Congress, Due March 1,
1987 for CY 1986 (available in IRS public reading room).  The report
indicates that the IRS received 8,071 valid FOIA requests in 1986 and
invoked Section 6103 in its response to 1,641 of those requests.

   APPENDIX