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Here is the part of the statute applicable to federal employees:

§ 7213. Unauthorized disclosure of information.

(a) Returns and return information.

(1) Federal employees and other persons. It shall be unlawful for any officer or employee of the United States or any person described in section 6103(n) [26 USCS § 6103(n)] (or an officer or employee of any such person), or any former officer or employee, willfully to disclose to any person, except as authorized in this title, any return or return information (as defined in section 6103(b) [26 USCS § 6103(b)]). Any violation of this paragraph shall be a felony punishable upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $ 5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution, and if such offense is committed by any officer or employee of the United States, he shall, in addition to any other punishment, be dismissed from office or discharged from employment upon conviction for such offense.

Note that it is equally illegal to disclose "return information," which is a very expansively defined term. Basically, anything in an IRS file would be "return information."

The Application records are a tad different. More advanced jurisprudence has decided, finally, that the records in the jacket still belong to the applicant and cannot be released even under FOIA laws or rules.

You don't need to call those supplemental materials 'return information' since, in fact, they aren't 'return information' ~ which, BTW, is usually digitied and on a disk somewhere at IRS.

When the application is approved, that fact is PUBLIC INFORMATION and you can get it on the internet. None of the stuff Lerner was demanding shows up there.