Source: Philadelphia Enquirer
You think you are getting too much spam, junk mail, and telemarketers calls now...just wait till the latest IRS scheme goes through. You ain't seen nothing yet.
IRS plans to allow preparers to sell data
Critics said the proposed regulation could lead to a loss of privacy for clients.
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."
IRS officials portray the changes as housecleaning to update outmoded regulations adopted before it began accepting returns electronically. 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.
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.
Add this to the tallies of losses under the current administration. Loss of rights, loss of property, and now--ta da!--loss of private tax information.
Life in GW's and Co.'s "Pandora's Box" is wonderful, isn't it?
Tags: [IRS], [IRS plans to allow preparers to sell data], [IRS allows Americans to be spammed], [spam], [what happened to privacy?], [only in Washington]
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