Democrats Call On DOJ To Investigate Tax Sites For Sharing Financial Information With Meta (theverge.com) 29
Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are calling (PDF) for an investigation into popular online tax filing companies, accusing them of sharing sensitive taxpayer data with Meta and Google without user consent. The Verge reports: On Tuesday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and others asked the Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission, Treasury Department, and the IRS to investigate whether TaxSlayer, H&R Block, and TaxAct violated taxpayer privacy laws by sharing sensitive user information with the two tech firms. Senators also released (PDF) their own report Wednesday detailing the accusations, first raised by The Markup last November.
The report alleges that for years, tax preparation companies infused their products with Meta and Google tracking pixels that revealed identifying information -- like a user's full name, address, and date of birth. The senators also suggest that some of the information provided, like the forms a user accessed, could be used to show "whether taxpayers were eligible for certain deductions or exemptions." The senators claim that the companies did not receive user consent to share this information, which could violate laws banning tax preparers from sharing tax return information with third parties, especially since much of this data could be used for advertising purposes.
The report alleges that for years, tax preparation companies infused their products with Meta and Google tracking pixels that revealed identifying information -- like a user's full name, address, and date of birth. The senators also suggest that some of the information provided, like the forms a user accessed, could be used to show "whether taxpayers were eligible for certain deductions or exemptions." The senators claim that the companies did not receive user consent to share this information, which could violate laws banning tax preparers from sharing tax return information with third parties, especially since much of this data could be used for advertising purposes.
Maybe fix your tax office? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe fix your tax office? (Score:5, Funny)
Fix the tax office? What, you mean like have the government provide a simple portal where people who have low-complexity tax returns could easily verify the payroll deduction data that has already been submitted electronically by employers, and then complete their filing with a few clicks? Like they do in most of the rest of the developed world? Sounds like a Socialist plot to destroy the profits of the poor, hardworking tax filing industry!
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Bah, low-complexity, payroll deduction simpletons.
The true alphas run small businesses, have complex investment portfolios and wealth management legal structures; where tax preparation is a combination of creative artform, sport and roulette.
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But that would "prevent competition" (says the GOP, who want to cut funding to the IRS, since all of them and their billionaire owners don't want to be audited.)
Re:Maybe fix your tax office? (Score:5, Informative)
The way we do taxes in the US is emblematic of so many of the problems with our society. Taxes were complicated, so people turned to tax preparers for help. Once there was a profitable tax preparation industry, the problem of difficult taxes became entrenched. The tax preparation industry now lobbies hard to prevent any attempt to fix taxes and make them easy enough to file without assistance. Once you know the basic pattern, you start seeing it everywhere.
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That means spending money on the IRS, which is anathema to Republican legislators. They treat an increase in IRS funding as as tantamount to a *tax increase*.
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To them is IS a tax increase since they're all tax cheats.
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"Cut spending" has become a religious tenet. Have to do it just to do it, even spending that dollar will double or triple the return.
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You can get them spinning around fast enough to generation a powerful electric current. Just say that the government wants to spend money to drill for oil...
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They were highly opposed to spending money on auditors, which would increase government revenue and reduce cheating. But noooooo, they'll target only conservatives because they know there's a conspiracy.
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They are "studying" doing just that. But, it's too late, because now there are entrenched interests worth billions.
In addition, what do you suppose would happen if the IRS rolled out an online method of doing this? (a) its UI would suck horribly, (b) you would not be able to keep your data locally, (c) you would HAVE to use their p.o.s. system and not be able to use local software, (d) it would break on April 14 and 15, (e) it would not be integrated with the 40 or so state tax systems, thus requiring at
Same as it ever was (Score:5, Insightful)
Illegal for a fine = legal for a price.
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H&R Block can do whatever they want (Score:2)
Nothing will come of this, guaranteed.
that should be a (Score:5, Insightful)
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at an nice club fed
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A lot of these fines were written in an era where a million dollars was an unspeakable sum. Today it amounts to a rounding error. However there is a simple solution. Scale the fine to the size of the company. Like Finland when they hand out speeding tickets based on your salary.
On the bright side (Score:2)
I've often felt like marketing companies should know that I don't earn enough for it to be worth them sending junk mail to me.
How'd we go from livable wages and healthcare reform to *checks notes* going after companies for failing to ask your marketing preferences? And that /. poster whom I shall not invoke frequently wonders why the other party still keeps winning elections.
Wouldn't be a problem if we got rid of income tax (Score:1)
The income tax is a 19th century solution that's been corrupted, convoluted and gamed to the point that 10 tax accountants will give 10 different answers to the same tax question. It's the 21st century and something completely different is needed.
A consumption tax would get rid of the 1040, April 15, tax complexity and the privacy problems associated therein.
A flat tax will just get us back to where we are now in 20 years after lobbyists have their way.
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This is easily fixable. The government sends a monthly check to every US citizen for the estimated/average amount that's paid in sales tax by someone at the poverty line.
You, me, the 1 month old kid and Elon Musk get a check for the exact same amount every month.
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Flat taxes suck because in order to make them truly fair*, you still have to do means testing and refund people based on their income level. You're then right back where you started with needing a convoluted mess of a system to make sure everybody who is entitled to one, gets a proper refund.
* Some might argue that everyone should be taxed at the same rate regardless of what they earn with no refunds to lower income earners. The problems with regressive taxes have already been explained to death and there
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I am still a fan of consumption taxes but Land Value Tax is in my opinion the best tax if I had to pick one.
But agreed, even VAT and some other are probably better than the US system even if we fixed some of the most obvious issues (like tax prep for most)
Why the Democrats? (Score:2)
Why is that the Democrats are the only ones complaining about this? Wouldn't it make America great again to keep the bad tech from hoovering up everything about us? I'm just so puzzled.
Putting the con in consent (Score:3)
Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are calling (PDF) for an investigation into popular online tax filing companies, accusing them of sharing sensitive taxpayer data with Meta and Google without user consent.
" We're the ones who share private tax information with everyone without user consent! Who the hell do they think they are?"
Don't think it's as big a problem as suggested (Score:1)
To be clear, this is the info sharing they were talking about [facebook.com].
The devs for the tax site used the meta pixel to they could tell how people were using the site, which I gather is a very standard way of understanding how visitors are using your site (useful to tell if people are getting confused by a certain option).
What Meta (or Google) gets out of it is user tracking to help with their ads.
Field values don't get sent unless the devs explicitly include them with advanced matching [facebook.com] (two sites, TaxSlayer and Tax