Yet more of our privacy is under attack and this time it comes from the IRS:

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.”

IRS officials portray the changes as housecleaning needed to update outmoded regulations adopted before it began accepting returns electronically. The proposed rules, which would become effective 30 days after a final version is published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written consent before selling tax information.

This is absolutely absurd. This is nothing more than a hand out to corporate America so that they can hound us on their products and services even more. Of course they say you must sign a consent before they can do this but how often would that be followed? How quickly will it just be a small by-line when you sign off with your preparer? That is exactly what will happen.