Some congressional Democrats say three large tax preparation firms sent “extraordinarily sensitive” information on tens of millions of taxpayers to Facebook parent company Meta over at least two years.

Some congressional Democrats say three large tax preparation firms sent “extraordinarily sensitive” information on tens of millions of taxpayers to Facebook parent company Meta over at least two years.

  • Dark Arc@lemmy.worldEnglish
    85·
    1 year ago

    If you’re wondering who but don’t want to read the article:

    Their report urges federal agencies to investigate and potentially go to court over the wealth of information that H&R Block, TaxAct and Tax Slayer shared with the social media giant.

    • SpaghettiProgrammer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      212·
      1 year ago

      Yikes. Side question- anyone know if GDPR protects against stuff like this?

      We really need a way to protect our data in the US. (I know GDPR isn’t related to US)

      • eric5949@lemmy.cloudaf.siteEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Some states do have at least something, Virginia and California that I know of. We aren’t Europeans though to gdpr doesn’t apply to us, we just get tangential benefits from companies who don’t want to have two ways of doing things depending upon if you’re in Europe or not. If all those websites that added opt in cookie boxes to their websites and whatnot wanted to strip all that out and serve special pages to Europeans they could.

        • grahamsz@kbin.social
          4·
          1 year ago

          Except H&R Block have offices in the EU and they, knowingly, serve EU citizens living in the US (and likely EU citizens living in Europe).

    • Scanzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      1 year ago

      Holy shit why are these companies doing anything with Meta. This is super scary.

      I don’t want anything to do with Meta, but now I can’t use pretty much any service without Meta getting my data anyway? I want off this ride.

    • Asafum@lemmy.worldEnglish
      25·
      1 year ago

      That shit makes me so angry it’s crazy… Socialism for the corporations, “rugged individualism” for the citizens…

      Republicans will scream and cry about socialism when we discuss healthcare, but gladly give corporations all the public money/wealth they could possibly want while also allowing them to charge us for the “product” they create…

      • xuxebiko@kbin.social
        411·
        1 year ago

        Republicans will scream and cry about socialism when we discuss healthcare, but gladly give corporations all the public money/wealth they could possibly want while also allowing them to charge us for the “product” they create…

        TBH, Democrats do that too. Those who don’t get canned by the DNC at election time.

    • admiralteal@kbin.social
      16·
      1 year ago

      The IRS already has all the relevant tax info for 99% of people. With only a few tiny changes in practice (like opening portals for applying for certain tax credits e.g., IRA incentives), we could get rid of tax prep software almost entirely and replace it with a simple bill. And for most people, the stuff they don’t automatically know about increases your tax burden instead of decreasing it. If you aren’t wealthy, they have zero incentive to chase you down on this kind of minor stuff like grey-market income, so diligently using tax prep software can really only increase the amount you owe. But we’re forced to do so.

      Having prefilled tax returns / billed taxes would likely lead to less cost and overhead within the IRS. It would nearly entirely fix the vast amount of unclaimed annual refunds that exist, which represents real money taken out of the pockets almost exclusively of the working class. Very wealthy people and folks who have extremely complex tax liabilities would still likely need professional preparation… but odds are they needed it anyway. And anyone could still have the option to contest/manually file if the new system were set up well.

      The tax prep lobby (H&R Block, Intuit, et al) are powerful, but their power has flagged significantly in the last few years. It may finally be a time where we can push for a better way. The IRS getting ready to offer its own tax prep software is a fabulous first step.

      The point is, there’s absolutely zero reason to have some weird market-based approach to taxes. It’s just adding additional layers of rent-seekers for no purpose. Basically, it’s US Conservative politics in a perfect microcosm.

  • xuxebiko@kbin.social
    18·
    1 year ago

    Tax data is tightly regulated, with penalties for improper sharing including fines and jail time. The report found the companies involved likely didn’t receive proper consent to share the data and could face criminal penalties.

    Jail time for the heads of Meta/Facebook, Google, H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer?! No chance. All corporates involved will, at most, get a ‘tsk,tsk’ and a fine they’ll earn back in an hour.

  • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    My bank has Facebook and Adobe trackers on their website. I block them but it’s just so dumb that they do that. Obviously most people have no idea it’s happening.

  • lagomorphlecture@kbin.social
    9·
    1 year ago

    This is a part of a larger issue, obviously, but this specific part of the problem could easily be resolved with tax reform. The IRS knows exactly how much you owe them so why do you have to pay a 3rd party to prepare it for you? Apparently in other countries the government tells you how much you owe and you just let them know if you disagree with that amount for some reason.

    But that type of tax reform won’t happen because these companies dump massive amounts of $$$ into lobbying.