J.D. Tuccille on How the IRS Turns Your Tax Returns Into Hacker Bait

Right about now, millions of
Americans are staring at tax forms, silently or loudly cursing the
ordeal according to their personal preferences. Maybe they’ll
answer a few nosy questions about their lives and finances and
either receive a bit of their money back or make a payment to Uncle
Sam. Maybe they’ll answer a lot of nosy
questions, with a similar outcome at the end. Either way few, if
any, are happy about the cash slipping from their possession into
Uncle Sam’s coffers. It’s possible, though, that they should be
more concerned about just how well the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) safeguards the answers to those nosy questions.

As it turns out, Reason.com’s managing editor J.D. Tuccille
notes, the federal government is a remarkably terrible guardian of
information, and the tax man keeps a treasure trove of personal
data about almost every American.

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