Tax season is right around the corner and with all the headaches and heartaches it can bring, let’s add to the pile of misery concerns about privacy.
According to reporting in The Markup, some popular tax filing services have been sharing user data with Facebook. Even if clients didn’t have FB accounts:
Major tax filing services such as H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer have been quietly transmitting sensitive financial information to Facebook when Americans file their taxes online, The Markup has learned.
The data, sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel, includes not only information like names and email addresses but often even more detailed information, including data on users’ income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts.
The information sent to Facebook can be used by the company to power its advertising algorithms and is gathered regardless of whether the person using the tax filing service has an account on Facebook or other platforms operated by its owner, Meta.
There’s much, much more at the link, including this gem, on how other sites did the same thing with user data:
…with the help of Pixel Hunt participants, The Markup found sensitive data sent to Facebook on the Education Department’s federal student aid application website, crisis pregnancy websites, and the websites of prominent hospitals.
The tax prep sites say they no longer use the Meta Pixel and, of course, everyone says they care about user privacy.
As they should (and are legally required to do):
…the IRS regulations controlling the way private tax filing services can use data are intentionally “very strong.”
Under the regulations [former Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson] helped develop, tax preparers—including e-filing companies—can use the information they receive from taxpayers only for limited purposes; for anything beyond immediately facilitating filing, the preparer has to get signed consent from the user that explains the recipient and the precise information being disclosed.
The government goes so far as to prescribe even the font size of requests for disclosure, saying it must be “the same size as, or larger than, the normal or standard body text used by the website or software package.”
The penalties for disclosing data without consent are potentially steep: Fines and even jail time are possible, although Olson said she wasn’t aware of any criminal cases that have been pursued.
Nor did the IRS have any comment on the matter.
But it would be helpful to everyone if it said something about this – clearly, publicly, and without delay.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Why send them to FB anyway
Its Just wrong
All the more reason to come into Liberty Tax Service.
Use Indie run tax prep firms vs chains