INCOMING: Orwell's Internal Revenue Service

For my winger readers who don't always support Bush (or so you claim), please get your shorts in a bunch and do something about this:

Orwell's Internal Revenue Service: "The headline noted above was atop a Treasury Department December press release announcing that your tax return and mine will soon be up for sale to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

The Internal Revenue Service is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. … If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers for the first time would be able to sell information from individual returns -- or even entire returns -- to marketers and data brokers. … The change is in a set of proposed rules the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them 'not a significant regulatory action.'

Like the Dubai ports deal, the administration tried to slip this little gem by with as little advance warning or fanfare as possible. The press release was issued the same day the 30-day comment period began. The entirely misleading headline was designed to throw off newsroom editors who routinely toss out reams of government agency press releases because 99.9998 percent of them are no more interesting or noteworthy than a 5th grader's 'What I did on vacation,' report.

But someone noticed, and now the administration is in full Sgt. Shultz mode again: 'I don't know nutting, I didn't see nutting.' Suddenly, no one of any rank seems to know anything about the genesis of this rule. (This new proposed 'safeguard' awkwardly made headlines the week after corporate tax preparer H&R Block was indicted for screwing taxpayers by selling them bogus savings accounts.)"

[UPDATE 3-27-06] CBS falsely suggested new IRS proposal on selling tax info "improve[s] taxpayer protections"; in fact, selling would expand.