At first, this seemed like something that couldn’t possibly be true. Maybe the reporter got confused. Maybe it was a big misunderstanding. Alas, it’s true.
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.
The change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them “not a significant regulatory action.”
Bush’s Treasury Department defends the changes as simple “housecleaning” revisions. Everyone who takes privacy rights seriously feels differently.
“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. “They think, ‘This person is a tax professional, and I’m going to rely on them.’ ”
Criticism also came from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.). In a letter last Tuesday to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama warned that once in the hands of third parties, tax information could be resold and handled under even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers’ vulnerability to identity theft and other risks.
“There is no more sensitive information than a taxpayer’s return, and the IRS’s proposal to allow these returns to be sold to third-party marketers and database brokers is deeply troubling,” Obama wrote.
Stunning. The IRS can’t explain it and tax-preparation companies such as H&R Block don’t want to talk about it.
As Kevin put it, “Welcome to George Bush’s IRS. Your whole life is now for sale as long as it benefits someone who’s a Republican campaign contributor.”