Lookie what snuck in through the Federal Register
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002878871&zsection_id=2002107549&slug=irs21&date=20060321PHILADELPHIA — The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers, for the first time, will be able to sell information from individual returns — or even entire returns — to marketers and data brokers.
The possible change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."
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Criticism of the proposal also came from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. In a letter last Tuesday to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama warned that once in the hands of third parties, tax information could be resold and handled under even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers' vulnerability to identity theft and other risks."There is no more sensitive information than a taxpayer's return, and the IRS's proposal to allow these returns to be sold to third-party marketers and database brokers is deeply troubling," Obama wrote.
Too bad the formal comment period for this ended March 8. But if you act now your comments "may receive consideration".
Dillon Taylor, Office of Associate Chief Counsel (Procedure and Administration), Administrative Provisions and Judicial Practice Division.
Phone: 202-622-7752 or 202-622-4940
E-mail: dillon.j.taylor@irscounsel.treas.gov