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IRS Pushes for New Reporting at Expense of Privacy

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the damn-the-consumers-full-speed-ahead dept.

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."

2 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. What's the big deal? by surmak · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

  2. WTF? I already report my income from credit cards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I already report and pay sales tax from my income from credit card transactions.

    And what the hell does the IRS care about my local city, county or state sales tax? Oh they want to make sure that I, as a small business owner, am reporting my income correctly? Fuck Off, I already do, audit me if you want you lazy fuckers, but stay the fuck out of my records unless you are doing an audit.

    They can't possibly figure out my take-home income from credit card transactions anyway. They don't know if my expenses are 10% or 90% of those transactions, nor do they know how much of my business is cash or check.

    Small businesses that want to hide income already know how to do this, they are cash only businesses. Allowing credit card transactions and avoiding paying taxes on that income is just asking for trouble. Well avoiding paying taxes in anyway is asking for trouble.

    Let me and my accountant do our work and don't change a thing.

    I can only see this leading to problems.