Enclosure 5: Fact Sheet for Protection
Of Federal Tax Return Information (FTI)


- Safeguards

Institutions must establish and maintain, to the satisfaction of the IRS and ED, safeguards designed to protect the confidentiality of FTI. In order to participate in the IRS/ED Skiptracing Program, each institution must provide a Safeguard Procedure Report describing the procedures established and utilized to assure the continuous protection and confidentiality of FTI.

- Prohibitions

Institutions and their agents are prohibited from using FTI furnished by the IRS for any purpose other than locating persons who have defaulted on a Federal Perkins Loan.

- Commingling

The IRS requires that FTI be maintained separately, so we urge that FTI not be commingled with other information in files. The FTI must always be in a locked facility (desk or cabinet) when not being used by an authorized employee. If the FTI is placed in case files or folders, the entire file must be identified as containing FTI and safeguarded (locked). Maintaining FTI separately allows a convenient and economical method to secure a small volume of data rather than a large volume of case files.