[IP] Bush's IRS Wants to Make Your Tax Returns Public

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne@warpspeed.com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: February 18, 2008 6:28:21 PM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy@warpspeed.com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Bush's IRS Wants to Make Your Tax Returns Public

[Note:  This item comes from reader Jack Unger.  DLH]

From: Jack Unger <junger@ask-wi.com>
Date: February 18, 2008 2:49:44 PM PST
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>
Subject: Bush’s IRS Wants to Make Your Tax Returns Public

A new article from the Philadelphia Inquirer has blown open the  
startling plans of the IRS <http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/14147002.htm 
> to allow tax preparers for the first time to sell the tax returns  
of their customers.

The proposal came in a painfully technical tax regulation <http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=151368,00.html 
>, which until now had attracted only a dozen public comments since  
it was announced in December. The proposal calls itself “not a  
significant regulatory action <http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-regs/13724302.pdf 
>.” But the proposal is indeed significant, both for tax privacy and  
more broadly.

Until now, tax preparers could not sell tax returns to outside  
parties. Period. If they got taxpayer consent, they could use it for  
marketing, but only within their own corporate family.

*The new proposal allows the tax preparers –- from your local  
accountant to giants such as H&R Block –- to get your signature and  
then give or sell the full tax return to data brokers, to your boss,  
to /anyone/. And there are absolutely no restrictions about what  
recipients do with the returns.* The rule lets recipients post the  
full return to the Internet if they want...

<http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/23/bushs-irs-wants-to-make-your-tax-returns-public/ 
>

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