3 ms·

This is a thoughtful piece. The provision really does open the door to a far greater invasions of privacy. That eBay powerseller, for example, will also have

by ckinnan 18y ago

This is a thoughtful piece. The provision really does open the door to a far greater invasions of privacy. That eBay powerseller, for example, will also have their Social Security number and other personally identifiable info stored in this database. And because it only tracks gross revenues, it won't work as planned, leading to lots of IRS audits just because of a high gross. So the next step, around 2015, will be collecting transaction details. Its also a new business risk, since any breach of this data will expose critical operational details. The worst part: Congress never had an up or down vote on this provision...it was thrown in the housing bill at the last minute for procedural reasons.

timr 18y ago
Not to attack you, but when did "up or down" become a necessary qualifier on "vote"? Last I checked, all votes are binary. (More to the point: when congress voted on the housing bill, they voted on this, too; it got a vote. It's naive to imply that all legislation that passes through congress somehow gets its own dedicated vote, and that it's "crooked" to put stuff into omnibus bills. This is how the sausage gets made, and it has been made the same way since the beginning....)
- maw 18y ago
  That's just argumentum ad antiquitatem.
rcoder 18y ago
We're talking about the IRS here. They already have records (including SSN/Tax ID, name, address, etc.) for every person and business in the country, so I don't see how this could possibly be some major new security risk. The argument about gross revenues is vacuous, too, since the entire point is to compare the reported gross and deductions against the known online revenues. You're expected to include all your income in a tax return, deduct where appropriate, and pay your fair share of tax. This new reporting scheme really just reduces the odds that someone could dramatically under-report their revenue without the IRS noticing. It may also be worth remembering that the IRS already has the right to ask for bank records during an audit, so this won't give them access to any information they couldn't get their hands on already.
- ckinnan 18y ago
  So why do we need these new databases then? In America you are presumed innocent, this new data regime assumes guilt and is open to abuse. Its a slippery slope towards greater supervision and control of ecommerce, with major new costs for businesses-- which have to maintain these data pools. Tracking gross revenue will actually lead to more audits of innocent businesses. Check out this testimony: http://www.cdt.org/testimony/20080612sohn.pdf http://www.cdt.org/testimony/20080612sohn.pdf

by ckinnan 18y ago

timr 18y ago

Not to attack you, but when did "up or down" become a necessary qualifier on "vote"? Last I checked, all votes are binary. (More to the point: when congress voted on the housing bill, they voted on this, too; it got a vote. It's naive to imply that all legislation that passes through congress somehow gets its own dedicated vote, and that it's "crooked" to put stuff into omnibus bills. This is how the sausage gets made, and it has been made the same way since the beginning....)

maw 18y ago
That's just argumentum ad antiquitatem.

rcoder 18y ago

We're talking about the IRS here. They already have records (including SSN/Tax ID, name, address, etc.) for every person and business in the country, so I don't see how this could possibly be some major new security risk. The argument about gross revenues is vacuous, too, since the entire point is to compare the reported gross and deductions against the known online revenues. You're expected to include all your income in a tax return, deduct where appropriate, and pay your fair share of tax. This new reporting scheme really just reduces the odds that someone could dramatically under-report their revenue without the IRS noticing. It may also be worth remembering that the IRS already has the right to ask for bank records during an audit, so this won't give them access to any information they couldn't get their hands on already.

ckinnan 18y ago
So why do we need these new databases then? In America you are presumed innocent, this new data regime assumes guilt and is open to abuse. Its a slippery slope towards greater supervision and control of ecommerce, with major new costs for businesses-- which have to maintain these data pools. Tracking gross revenue will actually lead to more audits of innocent businesses. Check out this testimony: http://www.cdt.org/testimony/20080612sohn.pdf http://www.cdt.org/testimony/20080612sohn.pdf