Taxing Our Patience Over Tax Privacy

Via ThinkProgress:¹

A new article from the Philadelphia Inquirer has blown open the startling plans of the IRS 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, 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.” 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.

(Hat-tip to Sarabeth from Delphiforums.)

This is not the first time that the privacy of US Tax Returns was under assault by the Republicans.

Remember the little "problem" that came to light in November of 2004, when Senator Istook slipped a provision into an Emergency Appropriations Bill that granted the chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees -- and their assistants -- access to taxpayer returns, without subjecting them to any of the rules governing privacy or holding them accountable for any misuse?²

This seems to be a growing concern for Republicans. Apparently, our privacy isn't worth preserving, and exposing us to a highly increased risk of identity theft is apparently worthwhile.

The overall process governing legislation in Congress is broken, partly due to attempts to manipulate it, and unless this is corrected there are boundless opportunities for small insertions to add up to serious breaches of the public trust in addition to major challenges to Constitutional rights and freedoms.

It is the announcement of this plan to sell the returns of taxpayers that makes me wonder how long the previous provision may have actually been in the works, and whether the explanation received from it -- now taken in light of this stupendously stupid idea -- may not be the real underlying reason. Normally, I'd want a tinfoil hat to wear while making such an assertion, but after six years where the Republican party had total control of the WH and Congress, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Conservatism failed miserably and utterly and that Republican lawmakers -- and WH officials -- lie, prevaricate, dissemble, dodge, stall and blame anyone else they can for their own criminal tendencies, I'll have to forego the tinfoil.

We really need to get these bums out of office and scrape their residue off the walls, floors, ceilings and furniture.

________________________________________________ Footnotes

________________________________________________

1. The ThinkProgress link to the story in the Philly Inquirer didn't work for me ("story not found") so here are two items from the Seattle Times regarding the issue:

   an article by Mary Dalrumple of the Associate Press

   and

   an editorial.

2. From the blog MauledAgain, a few articles pertaining to Istook's insert. I probably exceeded "fair use" even though I cut out a lot, so please go visit the blog and share it's addy with friends -- hopefully, a spike in positive traffice will lead to forgiveness for any offense. ;)

   A Mistake? Ha ha. But it's no laughing matter

   According to reports proliferating throughout web and print press (CNN, New York Times, Tax Analysts, and Tax Guru, to name a few), the spending legislation that Congress passed on Saturday contains a provision that permits the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the chair of the House Appropriations Committee and their assistants access to income tax returns unrestricted by privacy protection. Members of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees, which have primary responsibility for drafting tax legislation, have limited access to tax returns, so that they can evaluate IRS and other assertions that existing law is being abused or fails to accomplish legislative intent, but their access is subject to serious civil and criminal penalties if they disclose or misuse the information. The provision slipped into the spending bill lacks those restraints.

   The Mistake That Will Not Die

   It appears that members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees wanted the right to visit IRS facilities. So the bill contained language giving them that right, but it also included the language "any tax returns or return information contained therein" after the term "facilities." Nice. Some Republicans claim that it was merely "sloppy drafting" by the IRS and congressional staff, echoing and expanding Istook's claim. Sloppy indeed. Oops, my pen slipped and in went this extra language. They claim that they were trying to deal with committee members entering offices where tax return information is available. Well "any tax returns or return information contained therein" is NOT the way to get to that result. And one wonders why the Code is such a mess.
   
   Why the desire for this right to visit IRS facilities? We're told it's because members of the Appropriations committee and aides to the subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee don't like having to ask the House Ways and Means, Senate Finance, or Joint Tax Committees for permission to visit IRS facilities that have tax returns or tax return information available. Well, excuse me. Isn't there a reason that tax issues, and the IRS, are within the purview of a specific committee? Those committees, as I noted in the previous posting, operate under a set of rules protecting privacy and imposing civil and even criminal sanctions when the privacy is violated. But those provisions weren't included in the language giving members of the Appropriations Committees the right to visit IRS facilities.
   
   The AIDES don't like asking permission? Excuse me again, but aren't the aides hired servants of the people?

   The Problem That Will Not Die Gets A Biopsy

   1. What is so wrong with a staff member of the Appropriations Committee having to ask for permission from the Ways and Means committee chair to inspect IRS facilities? The point of asking permission is to bring the staff member within the privacy provisions. Why is asking permission such a problem? Concern that it would be denied for a good reason? Even more proof that asking permission makes sense. Concern that it would be denied for a wrong reason? At that point the member of the Appropriations staff could approach the chair of the Committee and let the matter be decided as it ought, in a dialogue between the elected representatives chairing the respective committees. Could it be that the problem is one of ego or convenience? Certainly. It is inconvenient to ask permission, but we learn as children (or should learn) that when it is necessary to ask for permission we do so, and we give the person being asked sufficient time to consider the request so that the response is timely.

      [...snip...]

   2. The wickedly bad habit of leaving things go until the last minute, a trait shared by too many people inside and outside of government, generates mistakes, carelessness, and bad judgment fueled by stress, time shortages, and lack of sleep. The need for an Appropriations bill isn't a surprise. Legitimate emergencies happen, and those who need to deal with them do the best that they can even if there is a time shortage, a ton of stress, and sleep deprivation. The blame here lies with the Congress. [...snip...] Toss in the manipulators, those who delay the process in the hope that the time shortage late in the year will get others to cave in to the demands of the manipulators, and it's easy to see why something everyone knew needed to be done suddenly needs to be done yesterday. So by the time they get to the Congress, the procrastinators, joined by the manipulators, overwhelm the few members that want to approach government the way successful business entrepreneurs approach business, and turn the legislative process into an inefficient, and in this instance, dangerous process.

      [...snip...]

   3. The Congress, not the staff, is responsible for its legislation. [...snip...] members cannot keep track of everything that is moving through the legislative pipeline. Most members of Congress do not read most of the legislation on which they vote. [...snip...] Who safeguards the bill from the staff? Apparently, the staff. [...snip...] There's a reason that lobbyists not only try to buttonhole members of Congress but develop relationships with members of the staff. The lobbyists know that there's hope in trying to get a staff member to tweak the language of a provision to which a member of the Congress has agreed in general principle. The devil is in the details, and the details are under the supervision of the staff.

   Congress needs some major streamlining and clutter-clearing.