What should the IRS do to protect our personal information?
It’s a week before Tax Day. Do you know where your tax information is?
My return is done. My refund is pocketed. My debts are lower.
But my personal information — Social Security numbers for myself and my family, my income, my deductions, my charitable contributions — they’re all sitting in a computer somewhere in the databanks of the Internal Revenue Service.
And, says this story by the Associated Press:
Treasury watchdogs said Monday that poor controls over IRS computers could allow a disgruntled employee, agency contractor or outside hacker to steal taxpayers’ confidential information.
Indeed, a hacker might even “gain full control of the IRS network,” said a report Monday [.pdf file] from the office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
Really?
And what should the government be doing about that, kind TOTD folks? Do the recommendations in the report go far enough? Or do you really even worry about stuff like this?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
I agree with Mark (9) we need a Fair Tax, not income taxes!
Thanks Robsmyth (11), it really baffles me when I tell people about it, they’ve never heard of it before, would be fair to every class of american, allow people to save money if they want without the stupid tax penalty. It would require businesses that sell to consumers to collect the tax and pay the government, but would require a fraction of ‘fed’ employees to over see this.
I have a friend that used to work for the IRS, he quit because of the unfair practices and that was a few years ago…
Time and time again, I have people that comment about part time jobs, and it just isn’t hardly worth it by the time taxes are taken out, which is so true. Then with the articles about Medicaid becoming insolvent in just a few short years and Social (in)Security being stolen to fund the government (which it was NEVER intended for) it won’t be there for me 30 years from now, why should I be forced to contribut to what amounts to another form of taxation, some could call it plain robbery, since you don’t have a choice and can’t opt out of it…
Then with the latest computer security concerns with the IRS and the REAL ID act (National ID card) requirements getting ready to take place, and we already know that passport files are not secure, Identity Theft is about to get an enormous boost in business… “We the people” need to force change in the downward sprial this country is heading.. before it is to late…
robsmith - you are voting for Obama and you hate taxes? What is up with that pal? He just voted to raise taxes on the middle class and will gladly keep gas prices high to pander to the environmentalists. I think you are confused.
Get rid of the IRS and have a national sales tax. The government shouldn’t be so informed about us.
If I had a penny for every entity that has my personal information I would be very well off. From doctors offices, mortgage companies, utility companies, credit card companies, to contractors hired by these entities in India and the like. I don’t remember authorizing for MasterCard to hire foreign companies who don’t speak english to manage my account….go figure. We can only hope our information is not stolen because if it is you are guilty no matter what….you will never fully recover.
Our personal information can be easily accessed by the average kid online these days. That’s the world we live in now….the information age….the good, the bad and the down right scary.
How about instead of trying to prevent people from getting our SSN, we just make it impossible for someone to get credit with just a name and ssn. I don’t understand why access to an id number should mean access to a line of credit. It should be as harmless as someone having access to your full name.
I don’t worry about stuff like this. It’s not that I don’t think it could happen to me, it’s just that I just don’t actively worry about it. There’s nothing any of us can do about it, and there’s nothing any of us can say that will make the government do anything other than try to control us and steal the money we work for to hand it out to people who do not work for it.
I am very surprised that this subject didn’t receive much reader comments, I guess people really are that selfish they don’t care to evoke change for the better.
(15) you bring up a very interesting point. I am a small employer, we use Quickbooks for our payroll, Intuit the company that owns Quickbooks uses people in India to handle support calls, problems, etc with PAYROLL of all things. They have access to your bank account information, which never has sat well with me.
Aside from the fact that any company you have credit with has your personal info, http://www.Fairtax.org would at least do away with it from the government standpoint, which I feel is he worst threat.