IRS wants U.S. law changed to allow the selling of personal tax returns!
Internal Revenue Service has proposed new regulations that would allow
commercial tax preparers to share, and even sell, confidential taxpayer
information to third party marketers and database brokers.
Under this proposal, commercial tax preparers would be able to sell and use
tax return information by obtaining the consumer's signature on a consent
form, which would be included in the enormous stack of documents given to
consumers for signature at the end of the tax preparation process.
Most likely, the inability of IRS to get profit making businesses to offer
"free" e-filing is behind this outrageous proposal. "Free" E-File? Sure,
just sign away your privacy rights is what the deal will be! And the privacy
law (§6103) which was written to protect the public's privacy (NOT IRS's
so-called "privacy") goes poof !
Consumers (i.e. Taxpayers) need to have a chance to understand what they are
giving up when they agree to have their tax reports shared or sold to
database brokers, and should not be blackmailed by the cost of E-filing into
signing such a draconian agreement.
Such tax information in the hands of a third party would not be subject to
strict privacy laws, increasing consumers' (taxpayers') vulnerability to
identity theft and other risks. Given the recent highly-publicized instances
of data security breaches by information brokers, credit card processors,
financial institutions, and merchants, it is astonishing that IRS has
proposed changes that might enable data brokering of the information
contained in an individual's tax returns. Such a breach involving tax
information would further erode public confidence in the security and
privacy of sensitive tax information.
There is no more sensitive information than a taxpayer's return, and the
IRS's despicable proposal to allow these returns to be sold to third-party
marketers and database brokers is deeply troubling. Tax returns provide
information regarding income levels, chartable contributions (including
religious affiliations), health payments, business interests, and other
personal information that in the wrong hands can and will lead to identity
theft and strip away what little privacy people have today. The tax system
depends on taxpayers providing detailed personal financial information to
the federal government to ensure accurate payment of taxes.
This IRS proposal would erode that trust and reverses the original in tent
of the privacy act, §6103. After taxpayers are coerced into signing away
their privacy rights, only the unintended privacy of IRS is covered by
§6103. IRS interpretations allow them duck and hide using §6103 as an
excuse, while the original intent of the law will be circumvented by passage
of IRS's proposed law.
LINK TO THE PROPOSED IRS REGULATION:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-regs/13724302.pdf
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