Democrats Press For Criminal Charges Against Tax Prep Firms Over Data Sharing (theverge.com) 62
Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal and Representative Katie Porter are demanding the Justice Department prosecute tax preparation companies for allegedly sharing sensitive taxpayer data with Meta and Google through tracking pixels. The lawmakers' call follows a Treasury Inspector General audit confirming their earlier investigation into TaxSlayer, H&R Block, and Tax Act. The audit found multiple companies failed to properly obtain consent before sharing tax return information via advertising tools. Violations could result in one-year prison terms and $1,000 fines per incident, potentially reaching billions in penalties given the scale of affected users.
In a letter shared with The Verge, the lawmakers said: "Accountability for these tax preparation companies -- who disclosed millions of taxpayers' tax return data, meaning they could potentially face billions of dollars in criminal liability -- is essential for protecting the rule of law and the privacy of taxpayers," the letter reads. "We urge you to follow the facts and the conclusions of TIGTA and the IRS and to take appropriate action against any companies or individuals that have violated the law."
In a letter shared with The Verge, the lawmakers said: "Accountability for these tax preparation companies -- who disclosed millions of taxpayers' tax return data, meaning they could potentially face billions of dollars in criminal liability -- is essential for protecting the rule of law and the privacy of taxpayers," the letter reads. "We urge you to follow the facts and the conclusions of TIGTA and the IRS and to take appropriate action against any companies or individuals that have violated the law."
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Well sure. When you're an 80 year old man whose cognitive decline is on full display every day, the last thing you want to do is release your medical records.
Re:Since it's Elizabeth Warren (Score:4)
Trump begs to differ. Trump believes that he is on topic for everything.
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I see what is being done there...
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
"If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking, do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted?" Trump said. "Or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?"
Or child care [thedailybeast.com]:
âoeWell, I would do that, and weâ(TM)re sitting downâ"you know, I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. Itâ(TM)s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that Iâ(TM)m talking about, thatâ"because look, child care is childcare, itâ(TM)sâ"couldnâ(TM)t, you know, itâ(TM)s something, you have to have it, in this country you have to have it.
But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that Iâ(TM)m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that theyâ(TM)re not used toâ"but theyâ(TM)ll get used to it very quicklyâ"and itâ(TM)s not gonna stop them from doing business with us, but they'll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that weâ(TM)re talking about, including childcare, that itâ(TM)s going to take care.
Weâ(TM)re gonna haveâ"I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with childcare. I want to stay with childcare, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I'm talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I justâ"that I just told you about.
Weâ(TM)re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, itâ(TM)s relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers weâ(TM)ll be taking in. Weâ(TM)re gonna make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then weâ(TM)ll worry about the rest of the world.
Letâ(TM)s help other people, but weâ(TM)re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. Itâ(TM)s about âMake America Great Again.â(TM)
We have to do it because right now weâ(TM)re a failing nation, so weâ(TM)ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question. Thank you.â
If he's this bad now, one can only imagine how bad his incoherency will be next year.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
When it became clear to the public that Biden had become almost as senile as Trump, his party convinced him to end his campaign and let his VP replace him as a candidate.
Your move.
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Republicans can do that after the election. If Vance says "Trump isn't obeying the boss' orders, so I'm going to 25A his ass" nobody is going to oppose that.
Re:Since it's Elizabeth Warren (Score:5, Insightful)
What weird shit? "Citation needed".
Re:Since it's Elizabeth Warren (Score:4, Informative)
But release your birth certificate and that 60 year old man will claim for the next 8 years that it's fake and that you're not qualified to run Then when he's 70 years old refuse to provide any documentation at all as being nobody's business, then when he's 80 he'll refuse to believe that someone worked at McDonald's.
Re:Since it's Elizabeth Warren (Score:5, Interesting)
The IRS finally got some money in the IRA to develop their own web based tax software. It had a limited roll out last year and was generally well received. Expect a wider roll out in the future.
The tax prep companies fought this tooth and nail for years with bribes to politicians but it was finally passed as part of Biden's IRA.
IRS Funding has been hobbled for years because the Republicans don't want their high earning tax cheats to get audited. The IRA also provided more money for audit and customer service.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with iRS enforcement is that they'll start harassing not billionaires, but people in the top 25% where the real money is. That includes many posters here, I suspect.
In my case, I don't have a lot of flexibility in my income and such and harassing me is just harassment. Not much money to be drawn from a stone. I doubt i'm much of an outlier. I've been through the rigamarole before and it was a lot of document production and such, with no changes. Just making my life worse with no real change
Re:Since it's Elizabeth Warren (Score:5, Informative)
From MSN
Werfel noted that the IRS' strategic plan over the next three tax years include a sharp increase in audits, although the agency reiterated it won't boost its enforcement for people who earn less than $400,000 annually — which covers the bulk of U.S. taxpayers.
The IRS plans to triple the audit rates on large corporations with assets of more than $250 million. Audit rates for these companies will rise to 22.6% in tax year 2026 from 8.8% in 2019.
Large partnerships with assets of more than $10 million will see their audit rates increase 10-fold, rising to 1% in tax year 2026 from 0.1% in 2019.
Wealthy individuals with total positive income of more than $10 million will see their audit rates rise 50% to 16.5% from 11% in 2019.
The IRS said Friday that it has recovered $1.3 billion in unpaid taxes from high-income Americans who had either failed to file their returns or who hadn't fully paid what they owed.
The announcement, made jointly with the U.S. Treasury Department, is aimed at highlighting the agency's ramped-up enforcement efforts against tax cheats, which have been funded under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
That IRS funding has proved controversial, with some Republican lawmakers falsely claiming the money would be used to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to "to audit Walmart shoppers."
Instead, the IRS says the money is being invested in improved customer service following years of snarls during the pandemic, as well as to increase the number of audits on people with more than $1 million in annual income and more than $250,000 in tax debts.
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If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
Re: Since it's Elizabeth Warren (Score:4)
"The only way to deal with these tax prep firms is to make the IRS do its job and provide some damn service"
The only way to make that happen is to fully fund the IRS, which is not going to happen if Cheeto Benito is re-selected.
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Or we could have a dramatically simpler tax system such that no one needs outside help and countless hours to figure out their taxes.
But no one in power wants that. They need to trade tax gimmes for political donations.
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Or we could have a dramatically simpler tax system such that no one needs outside help and countless hours to figure out their taxes.
We are already moving towards that. That's why we are getting free IRS e-filing. We only didn't have it earlier because of corporate money influencing the system, and again because of an unwillingness to fund the IRS.
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Providing free tax filing online a la turbo tax but free would be nice but doesn't solve the problem: the tax system is too fucking complicated.
There is funding the IRS to do things like providing free online software calculation and filing and there is hiring 85000 new agents to go after random people for audits.
The first is nice. The second is fucking over people who struggle with our tax system.
Normal people end up paying 100-200 to turbo tax and get most of what their are due, usually. But it's lame a
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Total whoosh.
The entire point is the tax system is so complex people can't even figure out what they owe. Hiring thousands of people to go after innocent people and then terrorize them with audits over money they may or may not owe is not what the point of,the tax system is supposed to be.
And why should we want the government to have more money anyway? I prefer the government to only have the money it requires for its constitutional role. No more, no,less. The constitution literally and explicitly defin
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I'm glad your personal experience was better than mine.
There was no negotiation. Just threat letters, sending dunning notices to my employer to extract money I didn't owe directly from my pay check and the threat of putting my in jail if I tried to go on vacation.
To do that vacation I had to pay them down to under 50k while my cpa continued to explain to them how the previous cpa fucked up. In the meantime they kept adding interest and penalties.
As I said, the end result was they finally acknowledged they
Re: Since it's Elizabeth Warren (Score:1)
The letters you call threats are notices that you have a right to receive which warn you about the statutory consequences for non-compliance. They are informational and educational. You seem to be short on both information and education, so you should be grateful that someone is taking the time to warn you about the consequences of your actions
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Lmao, you're cute.
I had a tax attorney/cpa firm on my side vs you, random internet clown, telling me my tax attorney doesn't know the law and consequences as well as you.
Classic Dunning Kruger.
I'm smart enough to know what I don't know so I hired professionals who cleaned it up. I do not take tax advice from random internet people. Thanks for the help but I'll stick with people who know what they're talking about.
Re: Since it's Elizabeth Warren (Score:2)
No, you didn't.
You lie about everything else, especially your competence, so no one will believe you're not lying about this. Even the Trumpanzees here are not that stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
Dunning Kruger responds. Thanks for joining today.
I've never lied about anything about myself, btw. I am very careful not to say anything some psycho like you could use to dox me but what I do say is true. Truth is always easier to keep track of than lies. I'm sorry it makes you bitter and angry to know i've been very financially successful while you are middle class at best. Actually, I'm not sorry. Not at all. I get a good laugh out of it every time you go all DK bitter.
Does it make you mad that a
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It is a big deal in the same way a storm in a tea cup is a big deal.
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They already released his tax returns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] It is a big deal in the same way a storm in a tea cup is a big deal.
Shhhhhh! It's funnier to watch people pretend they know what they're talking about when they're really clueless...
Re:Since it's Elizabeth Warren (Score:4, Informative)
They weren't voluntary, it was against Trump's will and he sued to stop this. The real problem though is the hypocrisy and the broken promise. Trump did indeed promise to release his tax returns when he was a and he never did, and those returns have not yet been made public. The released returns were from when he was in office.
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And yet, all other candidates since Nixon have done this. Meanwhile Trump is the guy who insisted over and over that Obama needed to submit his birth certificate, and he kept saying this long after Obama showed them. It's a bit hypocritical that he expects others to go under the microscope for inspection but that he himself, the proto-dictator, does not need to follow the practice.
The very act of refusing to release the tax returns causes the suspicion! Likely there's nothing there, but why hide it when
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The birth certificate was actually a thing not invented by Trump just he saw it somewhere but his birth certificate was checked and found to have issues,
The issue is not the birth certificate per se, but that Trump took that story and ran it to the ground, constantly repeating it despite it being debunked. Trump obsessed over this. And then, when he became president he denied he did this and blamed it on Hillary for starting it. Thus, Trump is a liar and hypocrite. The whole thing just shows how Trump obsesses over lies and attempts to repeat them constantly until his fans believe them.
As the Republicans _used_ to say, he has the wrong character to be p
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As compared to who? He changed his mind about releasing his returns, did it matter? Only to those who hate him and wanted to dig up some sort of lawfare against him.
"I'm under a routine audit, and it'll be released, and as soon as the audit is finished it will be released," - Donald Trump
“If you didn’t see the tax returns, you would think there is almost, like, something wrong. What’s wrong?" - Donald Trump (regarding Mitt Romney's returns)
"HALF of Americans don’t pay income tax despite crippling govt debt" - Donald Trump (one of those people)
"Barack Obama who wants to raise all our taxes, only pays 20.5% on $790k salary. Do as I say not as I do
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False. HE did not release his tax returns. Someone else did. The convicted felon repeatedly lied (imagine that) that he couldn't release his returns because he was being audited. Which is incontrovertibly false.
The IRS cannot release someone's tax returns without that person's permission. However, any person can release their tax returns at any time they wish. There is no rule/law/whatever against doing so.
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Unclear... (Score:2)
Re: Unclear... (Score:4, Insightful)
Tracking pixels are far more than just a literal pixel at this point, basically JS that can send back whatever it wants including form data. How they are used in this case I don't know.
Re:Unclear... (Score:4, Insightful)
TFA is all about tracking pixels, but at the same time implies that actual, financial information was shared. These two things are not the same.
Specific financial info no, but even if the pixel sends back just the URL that can tell you what sections of the website were being used, which can communicate financial information.
This specific infraction is probably pretty low risk, though if an ML model ingests it you could start making inferences. For instance, you start looking at bankruptcy sections of the tax website and you start seeing ads for bankruptcy attorneys.
And even if this breach is harmless there's benefit in sending a message that the companies need to take privacy more seriously.
Tax Information is Confidential (Score:5, Interesting)
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Since you cannot but a corporation in jail,
If you put everyone working for the corporation and the paperwork for the corporation in jail then you can put a corporation in jail. I say we skip the theoretical jailing and skip right to executing a corporation. >;)
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And no, that is not too harsh.
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By law in the US
And that's the problem. If it was "By law in any country other than the US" then it would be an issue. In the US they'll either get some slap on the wrist or lawyer the government into exhaustion until they give up and drop the case.
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"The audit found multiple companies failed to properly obtain consent before sharing tax return information via advertising tools. "
Doesn't seem consensual, not even disclosed.
Re: Who does the prison time? (Score:2)
It should be everyone involved in the decision and its implementation, from whatever execs were involved down to the engineer or admin who enabled the tracking.
It is also illegal to receive FTI...
I'm fiscally conservative and I approve this 100% (Score:2)
Just ban tracking generically (Score:2)
Advertising doesn't actually need tracking. Forget all the convoluted hand ringing about what is and isn't egregious and just do it the same for all.
So, will they ... (Score:2)
I guess if you steal something (or get someone else to steal it for you), you're in the clear.
Bent out of shape they are! (Score:2)
Oh the irony, what about criminal charges for unauthorized tax return shares by the IRS and/or Congress?