The IRS leaked confidential information about 120000 people, including names, contact information, financial data, etc.

CTOnews.com, Sept. 4 (Xinhua)-- the IRS said on Friday local time that the website inadvertently released general confidential information involving about 120000 people, and errors have been found and data deleted from the site, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The data come from form 990Motel T, which is usually used for people who have individual retirement accounts and earn certain types of business income from these retirement plans.

According to reports, the leaked data included names, contact information and financial information about these IRA revenues. The Treasury Department determined that it did not include social security numbers, complete personal income information or other data that could affect taxpayers' credit, according to a letter sent by the U.S. government to key members of Congress on Friday.

Since last year, there has been a human coding error in the electronic submission of form 990murt, according to the IRS and the Treasury. Some non-public data is mistakenly included in public data, and all of this data can be searched and downloaded on the agency's website. CTOnews.com learned that the Wall Street Journal said it also downloaded some of the data.

A researcher at the IRS discovered the mistake in recent weeks, sparking a broader investigation. The IRS notified Congress on Friday as required by federal law governing major information security incidents. Affected taxpayers will be notified in the coming weeks.