IRS Pushes for New Reporting at Expense of Privacy

angelheaded writes "Brian Krebs from the Washington Post is reporting that the Bush administration is proposing a new tax collection program that would force credit card companies to report merchants' income to the Internal Revenue Service. The plan has come under fire from privacy groups, who say it will create another private sector database tied to Social Security numbers at a time when ID theft experts are urging companies to wean themselves from the use and collection of such information."

Comments

What's the big deal?

[surmak]

According to the article, the IRS is only asking the banks to report the IDs of those receiving money from credit card transactions. Your purchases are not reported, only the aggregate of all the purchases of a business. This information will help to locate tax cheats. I would have a serious problem if the IRS got a list of where every consumer made a CC transaction, but that is not the case here.

The privacy issue is not a concern either. Even if it is a small business using the owner's SSN the IRS already has that info on tax forms, W2s, and other data they get from banks. This personal information will not be shared with anyone outside the IRS anymore than one's 1040 is.