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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."
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.
Since the main arguments for and against various tax reform proposals depend on much more serious problems with the US Federal tax system, I think the increased taxpayer privacy attribute of the national sales tax proposal is only of marginal importance in this field. Moreover, I feel I must point out that naming your proposal the "FairTax" rather than the "National Sales Tax" is political demagoguery at its worst. This is without considering the merits of the proposal.
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.
Yes, the credit reporting agencies already have that information, AND they already sell it if you have not Opted Out. This link is to the official site that lets you opt-out online, you can find the same link with Google keywords "opt out credit"
Those credit card offers in the mail that offer pre-approved cards are often based on information pulled from lists created and sold by the credit reporting agencies. This is an opt-out list, if you haven't told them not to sell your info, they are selling it to credit companies, insurance companies and debit collectors.
If you are interested in privacy, opt out now.
You don't need to fill out all that information. The only questions the Census needs to ask are:
- How many people (other than untaxed Indians) live in your household?
- Of those, how many are men over the age of 21?
- Of those, how many are enfranchised?
Anything else is extraneous.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...
Bzzt. Wrong answer.
_ 2.htm
Filling out your Tax return is "Voluntary, but not optional"
Look it up. It's true, and the courts have upheld it. It has to be voluntary to get around your 5th ammendment rights against self-incrimination. It's non-optional because of the income tax amendment.
A somewhat weaselly explaination can be found here http://taxes.about.com/od/taxtrouble/a/back_taxes
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I completely agree with you. One big reason why people I know pay someone to do the taxes is it is a pain in the butt to list every single stock trade you made during the last year.
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.
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)
Your information might be available online but it is definitly NOT the Census Bureau that is sharing the information with the resellers. As one very familiar with the inner workings of the Bureau I can tell you that NO personally identifiable information comes out of the Bureau - ever - even to other government agencies. Your information is protected under title 13 of the United States Code. We even hide data for small area estimates if it is unusual enough that someone might be able to figure what your values are based on their knowledge of that geographic area. We have teams of people that write programs that test this. Anyone who has access to your information is subject to a severe penalty (including jail time) if they distribute outside the Bureau (or even within if those getting it do not have a reason to look at it). The trust that the Bureau would lose if it were ever to go against this policy would cause response to drop and make the estimates extremely poor - it's just not worth it. I can't speak for other government agencies - but the Census Bureau does not and will not ever give personally identifiable data to anyone.
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!
Your answer
Before flat-out saying "thou shalt let black people vote" with the Fifteenth Amendment, the idea was to penalize a state that denied suffrage to a portion of its men over the age of 21 by reducing its delegation in the House proportionally (and finding out the size of a state's delegation is what the Census is all about). While it may or may not have teeth now that the Fifteenth Amendment has been ratified (though, in my opinion, this idea is far better at enforcing itself), it hasn't been repealed and therefore still needs to be taken into consideration by the Census.