Palantir reportedly supports IRS in probing financial crime cases

Palantir has supported the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations division in examining a range of financial crime cases across the United States for much of the past decade, according to a report.

The Internal Revenue Service has paid Palantir approximately $130 million since 2018 to use its data analysis software to review financial records as part of its investigative work. The information is based on public records related to the company’s IRS contract, obtained by the nonprofit watchdog organisation American Oversight.

It was already publicly known that the IRS was using Palantir’s technology and viewed it as a tool to modernise and automate audit processes. In addition, reports from last summer indicated that Palantir was involved in supporting DOGE, an initiative launched by a Donald Trump executive order aimed at improving government efficiency, including a project to access IRS records. However, the full scope of the agency’s reliance on Palantir’s systems had not previously been detailed.

The software in use, known as Palantir’s Lead and Case Analytics platform, is designed to aggregate and analyse data from multiple federal agencies. It can identify connections across millions of records and thousands of links between databases. The system is particularly effective at mapping relationships and communications among individuals, according to the report. Earlier this week, American Oversight filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking access to public records concerning the use of Palantir’s tools across various federal agencies, including the IRS.