On March 10 Tax Notes received a tip from a credible source that a person infected with the COVID-19 virus had attended the March 5-6 Federal Bar Association tax conference in Washington. We immediately attempted to verify that information for a news story while also taking steps to protect our staff from possible exposure.
When our initial inquiries to official sources did not yield definitive responses, we reached out to other coordinators and senior participants at the event to determine whether they had been aware of any risk.
We have been unable to verify the original tip. We therefore did not publish a news story out of concern that doing so would only raise alarm in the community. Nonetheless, our attempts to verify the report stirred up understandable fears. In response, we have decided to communicate what we do and do not know.
Both the conference organizers and the IRS have firmly denied having any information that a person infected with the coronavirus attended the event. We have been unable to find any evidence supporting the initial report.
Furthermore, because of a misunderstanding communicated by a senior editor, some of our reporters who reached out to sources mistakenly believed that the infected person was reported to be an IRS official. That was not the case; the original source did not make that claim. There is no reason to believe anyone at IRS is infected with the virus.
We are sorry that our attempt to verify this report worried members of the tax community. We did our best to responsibly investigate a serious allegation of a public health risk, and when the investigation did not provide conclusive results, we held off on a news story. But because of the nature of the threat and our own misunderstanding of the initial report, our attempts to report the story created the very concern we hoped to stave off. We regret that outcome and hope this notice alleviates those fears.
We make no apologies, however, for reporting on a matter of vital importance to tax practitioners. That's our job, and we will continue to do it.
Chuck O'Toole
Senior Executive Editor, News & Research