IRS Plans to Allow Preparers to Sell Data

From the Philadelphia Inquirer: IRS Plans to Allow Preparers to Sell Data

The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to sell information from individual returns – or even entire returns – to marketers and data brokers.
The 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.”

The proposed rule is available via GPO Access.
Thanks to my colleague, Margaret Booth for the tip,