IRS Plan Would Allow Sale of Tax Data to Marketers

[louis-t]

Here we go folks. You're tax data isn't private, but anything to do with the bushistas is.

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060321/BUSINESS07/603210412/1020/BUSINESS

PHILADELPHIA -- The Internal Revenue Service is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns.
<snip>

If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers for the first time would be able to sell information from individual returns -- or even entire returns -- to marketers and data brokers.

[napi21]

1. I heard this on KGO news this AM.

Do you realize if they sell your tax return, than all THIS info is public?

SS #
Bank account #'s
Your income from ALL sources
Mortgage Company
Amount of your mortgage
Investment information


I also heard that Obama has filed some procedure to stop this action.

I think we need to dig deeper into this story. This is another issue we sure can find common ground woth the freepers on!!!!

[merwin]

3. Mortgage company and amount are already public.

There are websites that you can look up tax information on any address, and it lists the mortgage company and amount loaned for the owner of any property.

It's commonly used by real estate agents.

[Robb]

13. Usually county clerk's office websites. n/t

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

2. It's bad all right, but tax preparers require your permission

Article cautions that people might sign the consent form by accident in the flurry of last-minute filing. I guess so, but I read everything I sign.

You have to be really alert these days. I made a purchase via phone a few weeks ago; the rep asked me for my email address. I asked them what their privacy policy was. They said Uh, well, we'll mark that box "do not share with third parties" if that's what you want. I said, "That's what I want, and here's a web-based address just in case you forget to mark it."

I went to a website hoping to buy something. I couldn't see prices unless I registered. Registration required all my contact info including phone. The site displayed no privacy policy or contact info other than an e-mail address. I said Screw this, and left.

If this IRS plan goes through I will require my accountant to state in writing that he won't sell my info. If he won't, I'll find another accountant who will. As Kent Jones says, "Vigilance!"

[napi21]

4. I agree, I always read everything I sign too, but we are in the

minority! ESPECIALLY poeple who visit their local H&R Block office ONCE a year! The agent slides several papers across the desk and says sign here, and BINGO, they just do it!

Boy, talk about selling Americans to the Corporations! This is insanity!!!!

[pushycat]

5. What's the big deal? Ever get a mortgage without your tax recs?

You must submit your complete tax return to the mortgage lenders to get a loan. Lenders have all that info if you have a home - they sell mortgages all around the country to each other too. It's a wonder these institutions haven't marketed our info - or do they?

[pitohui]

6. they do market it

your mail changes noticeably once you become a homeowner

[phusion]

7. I wonder if Turbotax will sell this?

Wouldn't be surprised...

[customerserviceguy]

30. If you don't

e-file through them, there is no way they have your information. You can always print out your tax return with TurboTax, then mail it in. Slow way to get your refund, yes, but if you're getting enough back to make a major difference in your life, you really need to file a new W-4 with your employer, and have less withheld.

[louis-t]

8. The problem isn't the mortgage amount or tax data.

It's the SS #s. Think identity fraud (which the bushistas claim they are trying to stop). Currently, businesses are allowed to sell your info to "other businesses that we have a relationship with" and we trust that they will be responsible with that info. This would allow them to sell your tax returns to anyone they choose. More loss of control, more loss of privacy. Question is: do you trust the IRS when they say their concern is to "safeguard" your private info?

[sarcasmo]

10. I agree, the SS# should not be let out for any reason. Greedy Asshats

This whole Regime is based on Greed.

[AzDar]

9. A REALLY bad idea. Jeebus, is everything for sale??? n/t

[JPZenger]

11. Great Name "Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer Information"

I love the Newspeak of the Bush Administration. The IRS first announced the proposal with a headline: "IRS Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer Information."

Here's an excerpt from today's Phila. Inquirer:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14147002.htm

"The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to sell information from individual returns - or even entire returns - to marketers and data brokers. The change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."

...Critics call the changes a dangerous breach in personal and financial privacy. They say the requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents before a filing deadline.

...Criticism also came from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.). In a letter last Tuesday to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama warned that once in the hands of third parties, tax information could be resold and handled under even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers' vulnerability to identity theft and other risks. "There is no more sensitive information than a taxpayer's return, and the IRS's proposal to allow these returns to be sold to third-party marketers and database brokers is deeply troubling," Obama wrote."

[Mithras61]

12. This is purely a giveaway to the tax-prep companies...

My tax return data is already available for sale if I choose to sell it or give it away. The only people or group that benefits are those who prepare taxes. This change needs to be stopped COLD because there is absolutely NO benefit to the people of this country from this.

[annofark]

14. Help me understand

HOW and why this would ever really happen? Don't we have a right to privacy?

[Mithras61]

15. It will work like this...

1) IRS changed rules requiring tax return data be kept confidential and that tax preparers are allowed to sell the data (but only with a signature approving this usage)

2) Tax prep companies begin "getting approval" by inserting permission form into the stacks of forms you are "required" to sign when you have them do your return

3) Tax prep companies complain to IRS that the signature requirment is onerous because "everybody grants it"

4) IRS changes rules from "opt in" to "opt out"

5) Tax prep software begins including a selector box for this to allow you to opt out, but the option defaults to opt in and is hidden in program settings or in the license agreement (like a "go to the website XXX to opt out" statement). At the same time, tax prep companies beging not including the form in their signing stack any more (you have to know enough about tax law to ask for the form to opt out).

6) All taxpayers forms (except for the wealthy few with attorney-prepared forms, etc.) become traded just like information on your credit purchases, etc is trained today.

As to your expected right to privacy, you will have waived that right by failing to opt out of the sellinmg/sharing agreement (you do that with software all the time... you should examine some of those license agreements - they'd make you SICK).

[annofark]

16. Hmmm...i know what this reminds me of...

Yup that is exactly what will happen. I am so sick of always looking out for being duped. Same thing with those "hidden fees" of $15 from HSBC/Household mentioned in the small small fine print of Turbotax if you option to have your service fee taken directly out of your deposit.

Why do we always have to be looking over our shoulder? I am so sick of getting ripped off and now it seems the governement, by allowing something like this, is just further promoting the practice of institutions taking advantage of an unsuspecting public.

[Mithras61]

17. Welcome to...

the "Corporate States of Amerika"

You can check your freedoms & privacy expectations at the border...

[kestrel91316]

22. Not anymore, we don't. Besides, the right to privacy ain't in the

Constitution, silly! Activist judges invented it.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

21. Not necessarily, Mithras

I'm a tax preparer, and if you were my client, I sure as hell wouldn't want your information floating around where one of my competitors could try to lure you away. I think that any tax preparation company that announces the intention to sell their clients' information to telemarketers is committing corporate suicide.

[salin]

29. Could be a marketing angle for your business

"We pledge to never sell your data, confidentiality and privacy protection - always."

Would appeal to those of us growing weary of the spector of all of our info being out there for the highest bidder, and alarmed at the whole industry growing around collecting and selling private data.

Might raise awareness that this is NOT necessariy standard practice among tax preparers.

Might push competitors to follow suit.

[Mithras61]

32. Perhaps you're right, but...

I expected that the people would cause a similar stink about credit card information being bought & sold (not the card numbers, but the information on what you bought & buying patterns), but nothing seems to have happened. I suspect that the majority of Amerikans simply don't understand that it is being sold & used, or they just don't care. I suspect that there is another group that don't believe it makes any difference, and a third that don't believe they can do anything about it.

Furthermore, I believe it is intended to soften the blow. I don't think they're going to include SSNs or specific deduction info in most of the sales (but I could easily be wrong), but will include agregate information like what the TurboTax/TaxCut people use to check for audit triggers, but in greater detail.

The problem I have is that I tend to expect what I see as a worst-case scenario, and end up undershooting their greed by several levels. I expect that the information will likely be sold to groups trying to lobby against bankruptcy reform, groups that do debt collection, and so on as well, and I think that the data will be quite valuable and it is therefore likely that corporations will attempt to sneak it past most taxpayers (the rule will likely NOT take effect until next year, when most people will no longer have this news on their radar). I'm not so much talking about the individual tax-preparers as I am the electronic solutions and the corporate preparers.

[newspeak]

18. this reminds me of a story

working for DMV--a woman came in to square away some tickets on her license--she was so frustrated because her identity had been stolen and she was having headaches with credit card companies, department stores and her license. It seems that an IRS employee stoled her identity-had been apprehended, but the victim was still paying for the theft of her identity. This woman obtained her birth certificate, got a driver's license--the whole nine yards. It was scary!!!!! She was still attempting to undo the damage that this thief had done under her identity.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. Sounds like a good reason to avoid tax preparers. But they make it harder…

harder every year.

[Left Turn]

33. Really?

Does it really seem like they make it harder to avoid tax preparers every year?

I feel like with the online tax services preparers are becoming less relevant. Maybe that's why they are trying to squeeze extra money out of each client with these high interest refund loans. I wonder if they're getting fewer customers now.

[DeepModem Mom]

20. Huh??? nt

[Daphne08]

23. When is enough going to be enough?

I'm really sick of this crap! :mad:

[progressivebydesign]

24. WTF??? America IS for sale. Privacy.. RIP. n/t

[fearnobush]

25. Wire tap data mining, IRS data mining - its all about the greed.

I wonder if this could be used as a way out of paying Fed income tax? Who the hell wants pay tax when all they do is use our money to enrich themselves and there Big oil, big Pharma buddies who got and stole them their seats in Government.

[Canuckistanian]

26. OMG, this is really low

Of course, the "upper echelons" will be excepted.

But SELLING them? I can think of many things to do to try and balance the budget, but SELLING your personal, private data to business interests is beyond disgusting.

Where are the libertarians on this issue? For the love of God, where are they?

[Liberty Belle]

27. This also violates medical privacy laws.

If someone claims medical deductions, their medical condition might be revealed -- ie, if the taxpayer is receiving treatment at a cancer center or Aids clinic. How can the IRS give this info out without violating state and federal laws protecting privacy of medical records?

I suppose they'll just toss those out the window next and let our doctors cash in by selling private info, too.

:-(


:kick:

[Iowa]

28. This is just a 1st step to soften us up for more loss of privacy later...

Eventually (unless we throw these bums out) the IRS will be looking to get in on the act and sell our data themselves. One thing I do to stick-it-to-the-man in a small way: I don't file electronically as a matter of principle. The Bush administration has a goal - they want 80% of us to file electronically by 2007. They have also shifted the audit emphasis from corps to individuals; audit fewer corps and more individuals. So I look at it this way... Every one of us who sends a paper return consumes a little bit of the IRS budget - and that's money they won't be able to use to screw us. Why make it easy for them? File a paper return.

[annofark]

31. We are the hunted

Aren't tax firms making enough money off of their clients? With hidden fees, RALs, and other sketchy practices I can only imagine all of the clever ways they are going to find to make money off of our information. I know that a lot of these tax firms have close relationships with banks (ex. HR Block partners with HSBC for Refund Anticipated Loans (RALs))...the same banks that would love our information in order to push their credit cards on us.