The IRS is taking “one more step” to “ensure that taxpayer information is provided only to the person who legally has a right to the data," the IRS says.
Which, in theory, sounds like a net positive. Until you learn how the IRS plans to guarantee taxpayers’ privacy… When accessing child tax credit information, online payment agreements and tax account information, “taxpayers will be asked to sign in with an ID.me account,” the IRS says.
“To verify their identity with ID.me, taxpayers need to provide a photo of an identity document such as a driver's license, state ID or passport,” the website says. “They'll also need to take a selfie with a smartphone or a computer with a webcam. Once their identity has been verified, they can securely access IRS online services.
“People who already have IRS usernames may continue to use their credentials from the old system to sign in un
til summer 2022, but are prompted to create an ID.me account as soon as possible,” says the IRS.
And we’re rather surprisingly on the same page as the ACLU. Like, mostly…
Who’s conspiratorial now?
Headquartered in the deep state’s environs — McLean, Virginia — “[ID.me] provides identity proofing, authentication and group affiliation verification for organizations across sectors,” the company says in a press release, with “technology [that] meets the federal standards for consumer authentication.”
ID.me claims its facial-recognition capabilities ferret out fraudsters like these…
Courtesy: ID.me
Very Norman Bates…
Heh… Hope you’ve recovered from that waking nightmare. How about more on taxes?
As messed up as 2021 tax filing is going to be — what with unemployment benefits, child tax credits, stimmy payments and an IRS backlog of about 8 million filings — things just got even thornier.
“Democrats are considering allowing a larger deduction for state and local taxes in 2021 than the $10,000 cap now in the law,” The Wall Street Journal says.
“That proposal is tied up in the stalled Build Back Better legislation,” the article notes. “The longer that is delayed, the less likely it is to be retroactive to 2021, but affected taxpayers might consider waiting to file their returns.”
Here’s a thought: Can you imagine the number of people filing early to collect refunds… and then having to do an amended return if it passes, say, in mid-March?
Also, amended, in many cases, would equate to itemizing instead of taking the standard deduction. And the percentage of filers who itemize collapsed dramatically post-2017…
Source: SmartAsset
Which ought to jam up the IRS — and taxpayers! — even further. File early? File late? It’s a coin toss, folks. But we wouldn’t count on that tax refund (if you get one) anytime soon…
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