Identity theft is grave danger in our increasingly electronic world. Now, the Internal Revenue Service is preparing to enact new rules that could amplify that threat. In a bid to convenience financial services companies, the IRS will open up taxpayers' personal information to third parties.
This change has fallen under the scrutiny of the press, consumer advocates and common Americans alike. In a world where stealing a person's identity only requires access to a few precious numbers, the IRS should recognize this decision will compromise the privacy of Americans and cancel its rule change immediately.
As it stands, tax preparation companies such as H&R Block are not allowed to share their clients' information with other businesses. Unfortunately, this will soon change. Under the questionable premise that loosening the availability of taxpayer information will level the playing field among such companies, these businesses will now be allowed to share the valuable information found on their clients' tax returns. This could include Social Security numbers, income, birthdates and dependents' names, among other information of immense use to identity thieves.
The most common defense of the new changes is that tax companies must solicit the permission of those clients whose information they want to sell. However, this can be incredibly deceiving. With all of the paperwork that these companies and their clients go through, it would be easy to overlook authorizing one's information to be released. In fact, such authorization could even be presented in such a way as to be easily overlooked.
A date has not yet been set for its rule changes to take effect, and the IRS should not set one. The IRS should put the convenience of taxpayers above that of financial companies and scrap its rule changes.
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New tax rule threatens privacy
