Newsletter 2013
Newsletter 2013
Privacy
Privacy
Print Full ArticleLast Reviewed: Jan 2014
Last Modified: Jan 2014
We view privacy issues in the context of protecting our clients' confidential information from disclosure to third parties. Recent events brought to light the erosion of our privacy rights on a whole different scale. As we are all now aware, certain federal agencies are collecting information about all of our e-mails (metadata) and storing this information for future reference. Whether this warrantless surveillance accesses the actual text of e-mails is not clear from what has been disclosed about the program and described in the press. We feel it is possible and perhaps likely that federal agencies involved in national security have access to the full text of e-mails without a warrant.
A large portion of the e-mails we exchange with clients contain mundane information, but some correspondence is inherently sensitive and should remain confidential. There is a nagging concern about the potential abuse of this information in the hands of our national security operatives and/or the sharing of this information with other government agencies. A few in Congress are stepping up to suggest some controls be put in place to prevent this. We are watching this issue carefully. The truth we need to all face is that there is really no such thing as a private e-mail. All our e-mail correspondence is subject to unauthorized disclosure through the hacking we have long worried about and now our own government's data mining. Please keep this in mind when you send us e-mails and attachments. We are encrypting all tax form attachments and we also use a cloud program with security features for the exchange of documents.
These security issues are impacting both sides of the fence. IRS is increasingly concerned about refund fraud, and we have clients who have experienced this problem when someone files a return using their name and social security number to obtain a fraudulent tax refund. In each case so far, these problems have sorted themselves out for our clients, but with considerable inconvenience. There are significant losses created for the Treasury through these abuses. IRS has taken steps to try to curb access to taxpayer information to prevent this and other types of fraud. As an example, their notices to taxpayers will no longer display social security numbers. They are now in the process of switching to bar codes instead. Our expectation is that these issues will not be so easily resolved and that financial fraud arising from tax filings and tax correspondence will continue to be a problem and challenge for IRS, taxpayers, and tax professionals.
Thank You
We want to once again express our gratitude to all of you for supporting our thriving tax practice. Our client base and the number of referral sources supporting our practice grows every year. We know that every client we service places a great deal of trust in our knowledge of the tax law, our ability to work quickly and accurately, our experience and our good judgment in resolving difficult and complex issues. We will always do our very best to meet these expectations.
We look forward to seeing you in the spring!
