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IRS to Allow Tax Preparers to Sell Your Info?
merkel writes "The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the IRS has proposed rule changes allowing tax-return preparers, like H&R Block, to sell an individual's return information to marketers and data brokers. The proposed rule [PDF], which does contain some substantive protections for the processing of electronic returns, was published in the Federal Register on December 8, 2005. The official comment period has passed, but hearings will be held this month."
Note to self: re-read the EULA on Turbo Tax.
Cogito Ergo Sum
Oh no, my information is going to be sold and the government is going to allow tax preparers to sell it!
... you can send me all the marketing offers and SPAM you want. I am worried about someone with my same name trying to pass their credit card debt off on me. And I'm also worried about anyone I know who might have a problem with a stalker.
*gasp*
Let's narrow our fears on something a little more worrisome regarding privacy and the United States Government.
Ever filled out census information? Because, if you have, your information is available to anyone via a number of sites. That's right, for as cheap as an $8-$10 fee, people can find out what income range you are in along with a variety of other facts about you. They can also find out where you live for free!
I would normally thank god that I have a very non-unique name but if I enter my hometown and state, there I am listed five times with my address and parent's phone number. I was just a kid when I lived there! The best part is that if you click my name, they take the liberty to plug my address into Mapquest and Google Map bars in case you don't have the time to copy and paste it in there!
Go ahead, now try your name.
*cups his hand to his ear listening for the sound of a million nerds enshrouding themselves in tin foil*
I'm not worried about my personal information being sold to marketers
Do you know what your government is doing with your census data?
My work here is dung.
Put an end to the IRS gathering this information on every single person on the country. Support the FairTax.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well, this rule should not be too alarming -- as long as these companies are up-front about it. What I'd like to see is a premium price for privacy: for an extra $10 (or whatever the value of your personal data is), they promise to never share it. Think of it another way: there's a $10 discount for letting them share your data.
It would be different if you had to go through these people, but since there are alternatives [TurboTax?] I suspect the market will sort it out. If tax preparation software acquired a "phone home" behaviour I'd start getting concerned.
It is the individual taxpayers information.
It was not acquired by the voluntary cooperation of the source.
If they want to sell it then they need permission from
the owner of the information, not the IRS's.
As if there's not enough trouble already with identity fraud & getting Social Security numbers of folks.
What dingbat at the IRS thought this was a good idea?
You know, one side effect of this is that it might accelerate the Flat Tax.
I use TurboTax. I normally pay the $29 fee to electronically file it, but I can just as easily not send it to an intermediary by printing it out and mailing it in.
It will be interesting to see how many people go back to paper filing their forms directly to the IRS. Should be a nightmare of un-automation for them.
I'm a big tall mofo.
CPA's ethics guidelines limit who and how a CPA share your information.
-Peer review
-Court order
-and such
It is a lot worse loose your CPA license than if a evening tax preparer to have to pick up a seasonal job. I doubt HR block would sell your info though even if they could.
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.
"The normal interaction is that the taxpayer just signs what the tax preparer puts in front of them," said Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer Federation of America, one of several groups fighting the changes.
You can't expect to protect people from their own stupidity. If the preparer can't get the tax return data this way, they can just have their customers fill out a 'financial worksheet' and sell that instead. If you're stupid enough to 'just sign' anything, you're going to have your privacy violated. This ruling is moot.
The IRS wants to make it easier for people that I (may) do business with in processing my taxes to sell my tax information to marketers and whatnot?
Let me think what is on my tax info (I'm not rich and don't have a tax accountant, and I'm ignorant of needing such additional stuff).
My SSN.
My income.
My major debts (mortgage interest writeoff and student loan interest writeoff).
Doesn't equifax, and the other companies that collect and sell this information already have that and more?
My tinfoil hat might be suffering from a large dose of gamma radiation, but isn't this stuff already public knowledge?
Granted, the additional provisions for more people to be able to sell this information does absolutely nothing to my benefit, but I see where having more avenues to get to what is already practically in the public domain already is going to harm me any more.
Just think of the possibilities, like blackmailing people by telling them you will query their deductions with the IRS and get them audited, you could get a raise out of your boss, have random people give you money, get dates with pretty girls (hey this is /.), the possibilities are endless.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
I suspect crony capitalists in the Bush administration.
After all, under their current procedures, people in India who were hired at Indian Minimum Wage already have access to your information. All it takes is a good memory to steal your identity. Which is why I used TurboTax previous to this- and may be switching next year if their EULA doesn't include a privacy clause.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Sadly, nothing is personal... not your ethnicity, not your income level, not your educational background, not your browsing habits, not your spending habits, not your tv viewing habits, etc... Maybe this will wake enough people up to change the way data about our lives is traded and sold to anyone with some green.
ConsultingFair.com
So, will this ruling allow H&R to sell data given to them (sold to them?) by the IRS, or is this saying that the IRS is allowing H&R Block to sell data from H&R Block customers? If it is the latter, so what? You think that companies with whom you do business don't sell your data to 3rd parties for the purpose of marketing?
/.er has poured time into learning how to recompile a kernel. Try applying the same principle to learning how to do your own taxes.
/flame suit on/
Quick solution: Do your own taxes
I do my own taxes every year, including taxable income, non taxable income, capital gains/losses, etc. It takes a bit of fortitude, but the average
Of the two inevitabilities in life, one is not Linux.
The proposed rules, which would become effective 30 days after a final version is published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written consent before selling tax information.
So, I don't see a problem. If for some reason, say free preparation, someone wants to give away this information, isn't that their choice? As long as I have the ability to say no to this, I don't see a problem.
Personal information is a commodity today. If you want to sell it, you should have that right. If you want to keep it private you should have a choice to do that as well.
Land of the free?
That was a loooooooooooooong time ago!
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Good! I like getting FUCKED OVER ! Don't you ?
Attention Hell: Here I come, and in a handbasket.
best you can if government know you made money. Not that you do that.
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.
"That's a disturbing trend among Washington officials lately," McConnell said. "They'll offer a modest consumer protection in one area in exchange for dramatic weakening of consumer protections in another area, and then try to convince the public that it's all in our interests."
"I think this just flew under the radar screen for so many people," McConnell said.
Oh Boy! Does that mean they can spy on us, sell our personal data and then throw us in prison without contacting our lawyers - all in the same day? Where do I sign up?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Good, l2718 , lets see your tax return then. Feel free to post it online here.
called the irs @
1-800-829-1040
spoke with a irs worker person
said that you have to sign a privacy aggrement
when you get your taxes done
that they will not disclose your info.
IF YOU DON'T THEN THEY CAN SELL IT to a third party
also stated that this is not a NEW LAW
it has always been in effect like this
and that third part "vendors" get the
info from them all the time
Want to bring jobs back home? Want to make the US the world's tax haven? Want to truly unleash the potential of American productivity?
FairTax is the way to go.
Below someone makes a great point about the Print button in Turbo Tax. That is, this could cause more people to shy away from electronic filing- which is the opposite of what the IRS wants.
Cogito Ergo Sum
Lets say there is a group of people willing to sell to sell their personal information for $10, and this becomes the accepted market price for this information.
Another group does not wish to share their information at any price.
A Company shares your personal information without permission, how can you justify any penalty greater than the $10 your information is worth?
1) Let the proposal go through
2) class action suit against IRS
30 demand legislation which restricts that who can authorize trading your personal data, which was submitted to corporations to allow them to provide service for you, not for trading your data
4) demand your tax prep company to amend the contract in which you explicitly deny the right for them to sell, lease or any other ways to profit from your personal data, in which you clearly state that any such violation will be dealt by the courts at your choice (make sure it's not in Delaware, which is a heaven for corporations, that's why most of the companies name Delaware as jurisdiction for any future legal actions)
5) organize boycotts against companies which ignore your request and participate in trading personal data that you never sold them, but provided for them in order to enable them to provide service for you
6) demand legislation that all your personal data, collected by a corporation should be destroyed, once you are not the customer of the corporation. Corporations should issue you a certificate of proof that your personal data was destroyed and a declaration that it has not been, will not be sold, traded to any third party.
7) organize class action suit against all corporations, cought trading your personal data without your explicit permission that allows them to profit from such transaction. Demand compensation and punitive payments which are based to financial compensation demanded for software, IP, etc. violation in current or past cases, aggrevated by the fact that your personal information is as unique as any intellectual property owned by any corporation.
Enough is enough...of calling a GS tax "fair."
...and, come on, this "hidden taxes" routine is just lame. We need 2.5T to keep the proverbial lights on in the federal government. You WILL PAY FOR IT SOMEHOW. You don't need to go through all the individual taxes to know what the government is taking. Just look at the budget. It comes to about $17k per working adult. Yeah, that's a lot of cash--and that's your "fair share." Well, actually, it's about $8333 per person, so if you have a family of four, you really should be ponying up about $33k instead of getting all those child credits while sucking up the education budget.
At a certain point (generally at about $100k), the vast majority people quickly stop consuming their income and start hoarding it. Oh sure, some will burn through it on booze, drugs and hookers, but most start shoving that capital back into capital. The higher that income gets, the smaller the percentage of it that is consumed. So, your "fair" tax would, dollar-for-dollar, tax someone making $100k the same as someone making $1M...and I got news for you, that "used property" exclusion? Well, they ain't makin' any new land, so guess what will happen to the price of dirt? Well, until we're vacationing on the Moon.
Business purposes = no tax? Again, people nearing or exceeding $100k routinely put their entire damned lives on Schedule C (or into corporations) for exactly this purpose. Even if they _do_ consume above that level, it will surely be claimed as business expense--and that's determined at the point of sale or are we back to filing returns to prove it? Well, guess what, if you can avoid taxes completely by claiming business expense...you're going to find a great number of entrepreneurs and if they have to file returns, what's the benefit again in terms of paperwork and complexity reduction? If they don't, how do we prove it was business-related? Hmm.
A "prebate?" So, everyone gets a monthly check for the taxes on the first $14k of income, assumed to be consumed? Gah... That is going to eliminate the bureaucracy precisely HOW? So, people under $14k will get prebates for whatever % of $14k or will they have to file returns to prove exactly how poor they are? That'll really free up the ol' paperwork and fraud burden, now, won't it? What if it's a family of 12 and all but one are saving every penny. Now do we file returns to prove our consumption of "necessities?" Oy vey.
The tax structure we have now is designed to induce certain behavior in many sectors. It is also designed to pay for certain _types_ of consumption, like gas taxes paying for the interstate pavement based on use. You consume pavement, you pay for the pavement. This sort of all-encompassing tax would shift the bureaucratic burden, it wouldn't eliminate it.
Really, I think the "Fair Tax" crowd has critically examined the current problem, which is certainly well due and admirable, but I don't think they've critically examined their solution, which on even first sight is fraught with all the same problems as the existing system -- and totally ignores a number of problems that the existing system deals with quite extensively.
IRS to screw taxpayer yet again.
Film at 11.
Once again, the media has overstated a story to attract attention to a non-issue. Regardless of what the IRS decides to do about tax preparers sharing tax information, this practice is already regulated by another law: the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act(GLBA).
GLBA was passed in 1999 to modernize aspects of the banking industry. Title V prevents financial institutions from selling consumer data without consent from the consumer. Remember a couple of years ago every bank, credit card company, loan agency, and anyone else who touched your money flooded your mailbox with Privacy Policy notices and "opt-out" statements? That was GLBA.
The best part is that GLBA classifies tax preparers as financial institutions , so H&R Block must provide the same protections to your information that a bank would (or should).
The proposed IRS rule change under section 1 specifically cites GLBA and points out that this rule change has no impact on the GLBA requirements.
Sorry to all you privacy alarmists out there, but this "Privacy Bomb" for the IRS is a dud.
Sigs are for lusers. Hey! wait a second...
CPA's can lose their license if they let your information loose.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Since your personal info get sold anyways....why not profit? Here is the plan; Support the move and just require that you get 10% of the selling price. This is more like adsense...managed by IRS. The money goes towards your taxes and the extra get sent to you when you file for returns.
They already do. And they've been in serious trouble for it.
What this is really about is "refund anticipation loans", which are incredibly profitable. Right now, the tax preparer can only sell those if they're "affiliated" with the lender. Under the new rules, any tax preparer can use any lender.
The biggest concern I see about 3rd parties holding a complete picture of your finances is identity theft. I recently finished an encryption project for a fairly large company that had millions (as in m) of unencrypted credit card and financial data available to anyone in the IT department for the taking with an iPod or a USB drive.
The more information someone can gleen about you the greater chance they can go out and get a car loan, house loan, access your bank accounts, or get various other forms of credit in your name. People should be concerned because there is no magic bullet to protecting yourself. Credit monitoring might catch activity but when you have to carry around a police report to keep from getting arrested you may not feel like that credit monitoring was the best solution. Identity theft victims spend years trying to rebuild their credit reports after an identity theft. Imagine not being able to open a bank account, get a job, apply for a credit card, get a load for car, a mortgage, a student loan or having the APR on your current cards go from 9% to 30% when you credit score gets trashed and there are police records with your name on it for writing bad checks and stealing cars on loan.
Data theft is much easier than robbing at gun point. Your only protection is your data. The more data out there in 3rd party hands, the greater the risk. It's a simple as that.
Under no circumstances can this be considered a "good thing" for US citizens. Since when did the government exist to serve and protect corporate interests rather than people?
I know.... it's a stupid question.
It is a lot worse loose your CPA license than if a...
To:
It is a lot worse to lose your CPA license than if a...
Instead of just:
It is a lot worse lose your CPA license than if a...
But oh well.
Think homos should be forced to take hormone therapy to cure them? -- Talk to the tip jar.
Want to kill more towelheads? -- Click this convenient paypal link
Want to make copying a song punishable by slavery in the saltmines? -- Small, unmarked bills only, please.
or
Suddenly tax-prep gets more lucrative. Of course, if they ever come through with that "flat tax" all those guys'll be out of business overnight anyway (and then I can ride to work on a flying pig every morning...)
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
...because I see no reason at all to pay a third party to do what I can easily do myself. I'd like to e-file directly with the IRS, but that does not appear to be an option.
I think it's scandalous that the IRS spends tax dollars sending out mailings promoting e-filing when, according to their own description, this method of submission is available only from the private sector, as a for-profit commercial enterprise. If the H&R Blocks of the world are making money off of e-filing, let them promote it themselves.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Did anyone actually RTFPDF in the link above?
/.)?
It looks to me like all they want to do with this bill is extend the same rights to privacy to on line documents that already have existed for years with hard copies. And IIRC, I already sign a non-disclosure agreement with H&R every year when my returns are completed.
Just what is the big deal? Am I missing something, being incredibly naive, or is everyone just up in arms about exactly nothing (not that this would ever happen on
If I am wrong, please tell me so I can file tin foil versions of my returns in the future.
... in INFAMY...
"The proposed rule [PDF], which does contain some substantive protections for the processing of electronic returns, was published in the Federal Register on December 8, 2005."
image word: "magnetic"
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Many progressives are against lotteries. Harper's and Mother Jones have both repeatedly run articles on how bad legalized gambling is for poor people.
And the whole "You shouldn't oppose X because you don't oppose Y which is also bad" argument is blatantly fallacious anyway.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
At a certain point (generally at about $100k), the vast majority people quickly stop consuming their income and start hoarding it. Oh sure, some will burn through it on booze, drugs and hookers, but most start shoving that capital back into capital.
m l#48
...and I got news for you, that "used property" exclusion? Well, they ain't makin' any new land, so guess what will happen to the price of dirt? Well, until we're vacationing on the Moon.
f
m l#3
Which is otherwise known as "investing", which is generally a good thing, providing money for loans, growing businesses, etc.
"The higher that income gets, the smaller the percentage of it that is consumed. So, your "fair" tax would, dollar-for-dollar, tax someone making $100k the same as someone making $1M
So what? If a millionare wants to reign in his spending to match that of someone making $100K, so what? You may be interested in: http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/faq-main.ht
But they are, of course, making new houses and other buildings. You might be interested in: http://www.fairtax.org/pdfs/TreatmentOFhousing.pd
"We need 2.5T to keep the proverbial lights on in the federal government. You WILL PAY FOR IT SOMEHOW."
The Fair Tax has been set up with an initial rate of 23%, which is calculated to directly replace the funds currently used to keep the lights on by the Federal Income Tax.
"A "prebate?" So, everyone gets a monthly check for the taxes on the first $14k of income, assumed to be consumed? Gah... That is going to eliminate the bureaucracy precisely HOW?"
The prebate has nothing to do with income. You might be interested in: http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/faq-main.ht
"Business purposes = no tax? Again, people nearing or exceeding $100k routinely put their entire damned lives on Schedule C (or into corporations) for exactly this purpose."
This is a valid area for concern. But remember, people cheat on their taxes today. The goal of the Fair Tax isn't to make a more cheat-proof system (though I believe it does just that), but rather to make a simpler, fairer system of taxation.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
The official comment period has passed, but hearings will be held this month.
So how did we not hear about the comment period until after it had expired? Another instance of public information protected by "Beware of the Leopard" signage?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
One of the companies mentioned sent "free tax software" via US mail earlier this year. Unfortunately some of the mailing labels had the customer's social security number on it. There was some fear that an ID theif could retrieve the mail and find the number, but the vast majority had already taken in their packages. However this still a sloppy practice.
I do my own taxes.
I hate reading stuff like this. It makes me feel helpless. I would vote for another candidate or political party, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. How could anyone in their right mind think that something like this is in the public's best interest?
It makes me so sad or mad.
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f-ing Peace Corps." - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky
tax preparer companies business? That is what this amounts too. These guys get to grow there business without having to work at it. Geez, I should buy stock in these companies based on that thought. So, for no to little investment, a company will be able to effectively jump into an established market and grow. What more do you want from a stock? Relatively the same operations cost, but more revenue. Where is the consumers interest in all of this? When did the government become the protector of big business? I thought government and the Constitution are around for people, not non-entities that live on paper like corporations. A coporation is not a person, so why does it get protected like one? There are some obvious answers to these questions, but I think the more profound answers is that government and the Constitution were created for the people. We live in a free market, so let business live and die by these rules.
Oh well, no big surprise with this news.
The "Fair" Tax people want to move the entire tax burden to sales taxes, so that poor people will pay more of the tax burden.
Flat Tax proponents want to have a flat rate tax on all income, so everyone pays a fair share in direct proportion to how much they can afford.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Yes some of this information that is on your taxes is already available. However your total income and your savings accounts and whatnot are not listed in your credit file, But lets give that information out now so criminals know who has the money to steal from and who is profitable to impersonate. They also do not nor does anyone else have ANY of your medical information however on your taxes you can find out how much you spent on reimbursible medical and medical insurance, and how about if you need an operation or some significant medical expense that costs alot of money. That you generally put on your taxes to try and lessen your tax burden but now companies can have that inforamation. So now who knows, well it looks like this guy spends too much on medical costs and must be sick alot or his family must be sick alot or some facimile so lets not hire him. Or lets raise his medical insurance rates, or lets drop his insurance or not insure him at all. Someone who spent alot on hospital bills last year might be more apt to get in a car crash so lets raise his rates. Or someone who shelled out money for medical treatment last year might have an ailment or die soon so lets not give him a loan. Then there are two more HUGE problems. A. People who donate to churchs or needy causes. So now if someone donates to the church of your favorite religion, ohh he practices islam don't hire him, or ohh he practices catholocism they are nothing but zealots, etc..etc... B. Donations to political parties, that information is supposed to be private and ALOT of people do not want anyone to know who they support because its such a highly contentious issue. Look he donated money to a republican group he's a Bush croney fire him. etc..
SUM it up:
A. Some medical information on there that is sensitive
B. Some Insurance information on there that is sensitive
C. Savings and other bank account information that is sensitive and never found in credit statistics. (lets see who would be good to steal from)
D. Charity and church donation information. (Not always good to let people know what religion you are or that you do not support a religion)
E. Political donation information. (He's a republican, Fired)
** They have enough information they don't need more **
And the moron(s) that say ohh just do it yourself by hand probably only have to fill out 10 fields on one form. Mine required 8 forms this year and 2 hours for a certified tax person to do it, I can only imagine the amount of time it would take me and I would probably screw something up.
This is a function of the income tax itself.
It's high time we abolished the IRS and instituted the National Retail Sales Tax: http://www.fairtax.org/
Free your ecomony and enact the FairTax
Over my dead body!!! Seriously, Over my dead body.
I've used Intellius myself to look up some old college friends. It doesn't have anything at all straight from their census forms.
I think it's misleading to say that information you put on your census form is given/sold to private parties. It's only made available tabulated to the census block level. A census block is chosen to be the smallest geographic area that gives respondents a reasonable level of privacy.
The highly specific information that these sites have some from credit reports and privately amassed marketing databases. Armed with this much more specific data, somebody who is good with data can leverage the census block statistics into making some shrewd guesses about you.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
This would never happen under a conservative administration with a conservative majority in both the House and Senate...
They would never allow a big government agency like that to make such an intrusive decision.
Maybe they haven't heard about it yet.
EXCEPT THAT:
:D
H R Block does try to get you to sign that you will share your information. It's a question and a screen late in the tax prep process, after the taxes are completed and choice of filing, and paying are done... saying yes causes an addition sheet to also be printed, which must be signed.
I'm posting Anon for a reason. I do occassionally work at a Block. AND have been asked - by managers why it seems to be that my "numbers" for this "service" are so low as to be non-existant. They say I'm not presenting it correctly. Oh, but I am, I'm explaining EXACTLY what it is.
This one does bother me.
I am not bothered by the refund loan situation. Certain banks (who back the loans, not HR Block - though they do "reserve the right to buy in" to the loan papers) reap most of the rewards for that. I cannot understand how people can be, and remain, year after year, in such financial straits that they cannot wait 2 weeks for their tax refunds. (okay, okay, 8-15 days) I also know that some states have strange assistance laws, so there are those who are leery of letting that amount of money (the max you can get through EITC with 2 children is $4400 of money you didn't pay in ) hit a checking account and thereby drop them off of the assitance rolls... (some states have a 'maximum daily balance' allowed, LOWER than that amount)
Don't you mean never?
Two points: First, these taxes are not targeted by the FairTax.
Then, where are these "hidden" taxes again? Payroll taxes? If we eliminated payroll taxes, you'd just see your salary decrease by 15%. End result to the "consumer?" Zilch. Great, I can no-longer deduct my mortgage interest, but I have to pay a 23%/$69k hit on $300k? I can roll that into my mortgage and compound it too? Terrific. If I buy a "used" house I don't have to pay it? Take a wild guess what that will do to new home construction? Not good.
"I think the big point you're missing with FairTax is that it is not meant to be perfect, just simpler and better than what we have now. It meets that criteria splendidly."
If you "simplify" the system like this, all other things will NOT remain equal. There is obviously terrific argument about how "splendidly" it would do this and --yes-- intelligent, informed people disagree on this. I'm not missing the point, I'm disagreeing with it.
Am I burdening their servers by using the free service? Or am I contributing to their profit?
Either way, at least I don't have to use any paper to do taxes.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I suspect this is being suggested so that pure-electronic service providers like Intuit (TurboTax), who don't do face-to-face work, can offer the same extras that the H&R Blocks and Jackson-Hewitts of the world offer: Crappy-Rate Refund Anticipation Loans, IRAs, Mortgage Services, etc.
... right here on page 17, section 2, paragraph 5, in the 2nd sentence, of our service agreement contract. You signed it. You opted out. We could only assume that you really wanted to receive pre-screened financial offers from our partners. If you didn't want to agree to this, you shouldn't have signed the agreement.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
A note from the uk, one thing that has given me hope that people care about their rights and privacy is this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1589133.stm and for those to lethargic to click:
During the 2001 census a quirk of our laws became apparent: if enough people put down under the religion question 'Jedi' it would become a recognised religion ( and in a loose link to the topic a 'jedi' minister qualifies for significant tax breaks )
I think this came about due to a backlash against intrusive goverment and its questions.... ahh those where the days, nowadays people just seem to bend over for, it all in the name of state terrorism of course.... ooops sorry I meant terrorism against the state
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?Acronym= %22goods+and+services+tax%22&Find=Find&string=on
= gst&Find=Find&string=exact
Apologies if expanding the "T" in "GST" confused you given the repetition of the term "goods and services" upthread. But then, I suppose one might just as well come back thinking I was talking about a "Generation Skipping Tax" or "Gold Sodium Thiosulfate."
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?Acronym
Honestly...
I highly doubt that, like someone making $20k/year, many people making $1M/year are spending 30% of their incomes in restaurants. Honestly, you think it is _common_ at that level of income to spend $904 PER DAY EVERY DAY on FOOD? Yeah, they spend more, but at a certain point, the restaurants just don't get much more expensive.
t y_real_estate_wrap_howard_owns_the_hamptons.php
for example, Howard Stern likes to eat at Nobu. Dinner at Nobu is about $100. He makes that in 30 seconds (24/7). I pretty routinely eat at places, say, half that expensive at about $50. An average dinner tab for me is thus about one twentieth of one percent of my income. 1/20th of 1% of his income would be $50,000.
That's about 500 plates of Nobu goodness. He must be REALLY hungry.
He must spend much more on housing, though. Oh wait, no, his house cost $20M.
http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005/11/14/celebri
That's ONE FIFTH of his annual income. Most people around or below the $100K mark are buying homes worth FIVE TIMES their incomes--and guess what, his was "used." A great number in the $100K mark are forced out into new construction in the 'burbs. So, for a $500k suburban McMansion, I gotta pony up $69k in "Fair Tax." For Howard's $20M manse in the Hamptons, he whistles dixie.
Get it yet?
GLBA was passed in 1999 to modernize aspects of the banking industry. Title V prevents financial institutions from selling consumer data without consent from the consumer.
Unless things have changed in the meantime, you are glossing over a VERY important caveat.
That caveat is - even without consent, they can still 'share' information with 'business partners' - and the definition of 'business partner' is so vague as to be easily stretched into "anyone who gives us money."
So, while the GLBA sounds nice, it is just another set of meaningless rules that is all bark and no bite. Just like the lobbyists wanted it.
I'm not worried about my personal information being sold to marketers ... you can send me all the marketing offers and SPAM you want.
Put your money where your mouth is, champ...Post your personal information, I'll give it to 'em for *free*.
As a warning, I submitted my info to this site (Optoutprescreen.com) hoping to stop receiving Pre-approved credit offers. Not only did the offers not stop but they increased to about 10 per week.
The website seems legit but if you read their privacy policy it reveals that they reveal your information to 3rd party affiliates.
Fair Warning!
Here is how to calculate a fair tax; Take the Budget (B) and divide it by the total number of Citizens (C). The result is the Tax (T). By definition, each citizen's fair share to run the government is T.
Of course it isn't practical to collect "T" from each citizen, but it certainly would be fair. No matter how you slice it, the taxes come from those who have money, because, fair or not, the poor don't have it.
A big part of the problem is how absurdly large "B" has become. It can be argued that, especially at a federal level, the government has gone "beyond the scope of the original project". The incentive to make "B" a smaller number becomes less and less as the fewer and fewer citizens pay their share of "T".
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Treasury is trying to do four things with these proposed regulations:
(1) modernize the disclosure and use regulations for the modern era;
(2) strike back at outsourcers and offshorers;
(3) allow tax preparers to sell your data, which will allow the IRS to buy the data to help narrow the tax gap.
(4) allow tax preparers to sell your data, which will allow other agencies to get around the disclosure restrictions imposed on the IRS in Internal Revenue Code section 6103 (26 USC 6103).
Your tax return data, especially the marketable kind, is more than what you can see on the face of your return. All of the stuff you give to your tax preparer -- what you own, where your accounts are, what you've sold, where your money is coming from -- all of this is tax return info and it will all be for sale.
Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." Dinner for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to eat their meal.
So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start eating overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
Libertas in infinitum
Less info is "collected" from the printed forms. Besides... I don't want to make the IRS' job easier unless they give me a rebate for making their job easier. They "cost me" many hours a year to prepare my return... It's only fair that someone there has to spend some time to feed my paper form through a scanner. Offer me a $100/return credit/refund and I'll think about giving them my return in machine-readable form.
Money is a commodity like anything else. The more of it person A has, the less of it person B can have. There's no way around it. If money was not finite then it would have no value. Just remember that economics is simple. If there are two dollars in the economy today, and I have $1.50, it doesn't matter how hard you work, or how much you invest, or how much of anything you do, you cannot make more than 50 cents. The more of the pie the wealthy get, the less of the pie you can have. End of story.
Your entire premise is based on the assumption that it is not possible to create wealth, which is untrue.
Let us suppose that you have $1.50, and I have the other $.50 in our $2.00 world. Suppose I take my $.50 and I give it to someone else in exchange for some wood, which I carve into a figurine worth $5. Suddenly, I just grew our financial world by $3. And if the "authorities" refuse to print more money to account for this growth, soon people will start paying me with something else besides dollars to aquire my goods, like, say, bartering.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I believe these answer your question:
m l#5
m l#6
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/faq-main.ht
"Is the 23% FairTax higher or lower when compared to the income taxes people pay today?
Most people are paying that much or more today - much of it is just hidden from view. The income tax bracket most people fall into is 15 percent, and all wage earners pay 7.65 percent in payroll taxes. That's 23 percent right there, without taking into account the 7.65 percent employer matching! On top of that, you have to add in all of the hidden taxes embedded in the price of everything you buy, from goods (averaging 22 percent) to services (averaging 25 percent).
Effective tax rates vs. stated tax rates
Because the 23-percent FairTax would not be imposed on necessities, an individual spending $28,808 would pay an effective tax rate of only 15.6 percent, not 23 percent. That same individual will pay 17.3 percent of his or her income to federal taxes under current law."
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/faq-main.ht
"Does the FairTax rate need to be much higher to be revenue neutral?
The proper tax rate has been carefully worked out; 23 percent does the job of: (1) raising the same amount of federal funds as are raised by the current system, (2) paying the universal rebate, and (3) paying the collection fees to retailers and state governments. Unlike some other proposals, this rate has been independently confirmed by several different, non-partisan institutions across the country. Detailed calculations are available from FairTax.org."
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/faq-main.htm l#12
# Is the FairTax fair?
Yes, the FairTax is fair, and in fact, much fairer than the income tax. Wealthy people spend more money than other individuals. They buy expensive cars, big houses, and yachts. They buy filet mignon instead of hamburger, fine wine instead of beer, designer dresses and expensive jewelry. The FairTax taxes them on these purchases. If, however, they use their money to build job-creating factories, finance research and development to create new products, or fund charitable activities (all of which help improve the standard of living of others), then those activities are not taxed.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"McConnell accused the IRS of using the new limit on overseas processing to dress up changes that would chiefly benefit tax preparers, marketers and data brokers."
This relates in a particularly ugly way to recent revelations about Total Information Awareness. There was a recent article about how this program has been quietly broken up and kept going under the cover of several seemingly unrelated programs.
There are a huge number of different data collection points for information about people. All of this information needs to be aggregated and collated. Once all this has been done, inference engines need to be devised and targetted appropriately in finding people and events the government would be interested in.
This entire process is incredibly complex and expensive to build. It's also incredibly expensive to maintain. It's so expensive that the IRS is way behind the technology curve in harnessing basic implementations to target appropriate returns to audit.
The government has every motivation to find a cost effective and maintainable way to deal with this. One way is to permit private industry to do as much as possible. The government can then dip into the already correlated data to take what they want.
If I'm right, the government is quietly giving a huge amount of information to private industry for the very good reason that they get it back in a much more useful form. A form that gives them a much, much greater chance of tracking financial dealings of those people and organizations they are interested in.
After the first year with a loss that could be carried over, I've been grateful that my tax software just copied over the residual from the backup of the previous year, and prompted me about it. I've been carrying over this way since TY2000. On the other hand, I don't know if I'm filing this past year, yet, (I had no income!) so I don't know if next year's software will let me skip the null TY2005, and pull from TY2004 data.
The "fair tax" as described in the book does not allow you to deduct things because they were for "business use." The rule is, if you consume it, you have to pay tax on it. The only time you don't have to pay tax is when you're buying for resale.
I suppose the only loophole here is if you buy a bunch of inventory for resale and then sell it at a loss (thus causing the retail price to be less, and the tax to be less). But it would be really suspicious if the company you own bought only one Bugatti Veylon for "resale" and then was unable to sell it at full price and so sold it at a stupendous loss to, ah, you...
Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
US Law forbids the Census Bureau from giving out personal information, and that works just fine until either the Congress changes the laws or the Administration decides that those laws don't apply to it, for instance because the War on Terror lets them do Whatever It Takes with census data, just as they've decided that they can eavesdrop on anybody without warrants and arrest people without giving them any due process.
You've probably noticed that the Census asks for a lot of ethnic and national-origin data - especially about Hispanics; they didn't ask us Anglos to identify whether our ancestry were Brits or Scots or Irish or French or German, but they cared if you were Mexican or Cuban or Guatemalan etc. That's the kind of data that you really shouldn't trust a government with, especially when its immigration policies have demonstrable levels of racism. And while they do a reasonable level of obfuscation in the data, the number of Guatemalan-Mexican couples with two children ages seven and four living in three-bedroom 1.5-bath apartments in a given census tract is probably fairly small.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
TurboTax did a fine job of calculating Alternative Minimum Tax when one startup my wife worked for paid her options that were taxable and never went public - but she had to get the right basis information herself and let the software do the easy parts.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Just speculating here, but the big market for this information is probably "tax refund loans" being sold to people who want their refund money in February and don't realize the interest rates are usually a rip-off. This change lets the tax preparation companies provide financial information to the loan companies instead of originating the loans themselves. And the people who want the loans usually aren't the most financially savvy, and therefore aren't as likely to go reading the fine print themselves - or the fine print's in the loan application, and they don't get the loan without the information permission slip.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's $8333 per person, or $17k per working adult. ...yes, the intricacies of tax systems are precisely because, no, someone making $14k per year cannot afford $8k, much less $17k per year, but also, someone making $1.8M per year is earning their income precisely because others are making $14k per year and are taken care of by what that $2.5T per year puts in place in terms of infrastructure, so by all rights they _should_ pay more of the burden since they profit from the proceeds. Duh, eh?
The EU Data Protection Directive has a rather diametral stand then you on this is issue. In essence: Your data belongs to you; period!
This is like you selling me a book and then trying to dictate what tone of voice I use while reading it aloud because it's your poetry.
There are a lot of hilarious, if not rediculous analogies on /., but this one is a sure contester for first price.
There is no need to thank me.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I would imagine that it's not hypocracy, I'd think that they just don't think that anything completely voluntary and fully disclosed can possibly be considered regressive. Which would seem rather sensible to me. (You are hurt by a lottery based on how you rank on the "stupidity" scale primarily, not the economic scale. Plus, entertainment is supposed to be a money sink, that's why it's called entertainment and not investment.)
So, yeah, it's not so much that you aren't getting your point across as that you don't have a point at all.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
It's not quite the same in the US as it was in the UK in the 70s.
In the US, you're still legally liable to pay US tax no matter where your income occurs. You are required to report all income, from every country in the world. (I know this as a US resident with overseas income.)
Furthermore, if you are a US citizen, you are legally required to file a US tax return even if you aren't resident in the US.
Now, in practice many rich people (and corporations) don't report all their income, and don't pay taxes on it. They get away with it because they squirrel away their money in countries that don't have financial reporting laws and won't disclose information to the US IRS. And many Americans who move overseas don't bother to file their tax returns. But as I understand it, they are breaking the law.
So increasing US income tax rates isn't going to incent law abiding people to move their money overseas. It may lead to increased law breaking, and that law-breaking may be hard to police, but the same argument could be made against any system of taxation. I mean, look at the nightmare Italy has trying to police sales tax.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Until turbotax is smart enough to file 3 federal and 4 state returns for me, without any mistakes, and legally minimizing my taxes, I'll be using a CPA, thank you very much. And there is no way in hell I could do my returns by hand. I have neither the time nor the expertise to do what he does.
Once you quit being a W-2 slave, you'll realize that your CPA is one of the most valuable members of your team.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
That is a pretty whack view of how the economy works. There may be a few instances where that statement is true, but by far and away it is false. The economy is not a zero sum game.
Most people who earn a lot of money earn it by selling stuff to other people with money.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Yeah, "selling stuff" like "stock." You know, in "companies." You know, "companies" that do things like "manufacture."
Honestly, who do you think MAKES the stuff they sell? Or do you think that stocks have intrinsic value because they're printed on really snazzy paper?
I'm sorry, but you don't have to be an expert in *anything* to read a document before you sign it. Not reading a contract before signing it isn't naive, it's stupid. That goes for things as simple as a credit card receipt, and should be obvious for something as important as your tax return.
Most contracts can be read at about a 90% level of comprehension, but then you get into tricky things like obscure terms and the difference in meaning between "will" and "shall" (hint: it's the same as the strict grammatical sense of the words) and what you're signing may or not mean what you think it says. And the clerk in the store is not likely to know exactly what it means either.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
"My original point was that very very few high wage earners get their money because someone earns less."
Very, very few high wage earners are self-sufficient operating without equipment, staff or service industries. If that equipment was made by, or those offices staffed by or those services provided by people with the same or higher incomes, those high wage earner's wages wouldn't be worth much.
As you've so appropriately pointed out, yes, most of the world is very, very low-income. Cheap labor is absolutely required for creating wealth. Without dollar-a-day labor in China, most Americans simply couldn't afford to have the trappings of wealth that they do. As you've so pointedly recognized, income and wealth disparity isn't just between the upper, professional and working classes of Americans, it's global. Just because we're wealthier than devloping nations doesn't mean that suddenly wealth differential no longer matters within our own.
Like you said, the rich can outsource their assets to avoid taxes. Worst comes to worst, they renounce their citizenship and never come back.
Meanwhile, they've liquidated all their assets in their home country, shut down their businesses, fired hundreds of workers, etc...
Probably parted out their assets to people not in such a high tax bracket.
Or just laid back and retired early, as it's not worth it with an 85% penalty on any money they earn at this point.
I don't read AC A human right