Senator Elizabeth Warren, “Tax prep companies should not be able to force taxpayers to give up important statutory protections and remedies just for the privilege of filing their taxes.”
December 15, 2022 – Washington, D.C. — United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) a member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, along with Representatives Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) sent letters to tax preparation companies H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer, plus big tech firms Meta, and Google, amid reports that the tax preparation companies have been secretly transmitting individual taxpayers’ sensitive financial information to Meta and Google. The information, gathered as Americans file their taxes online, reportedly included data on users’ income, filing status, and refund amounts.
“Such unauthorized disclosures of sensitive taxpayer data would be clearly inappropriate and potentially illegal,” wrote the lawmakers. “The Internal Revenue Code clearly states that ‘returns and return information shall be confidential,’ with limited exceptions.”
Last month, The Markup reported that major tax preparation companies, including H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer had been transmitting sensitive taxpayer data to Meta via widely-used code called the “Meta Pixel.” This code is provided of charge to any business and records users’ browsing history and even information…
