Marketing Companies Get Your Private Tax Information

The San Francisco Chronicle reports H&R Block and Intuit (publisher of the Quicken and Turbo Tax programs) use third-party marketing companies to track where you go on the web, and there's no controls on what those companies could do with your data.

"We could capture your name, your Social Security number or any other information that you willingly pass to a Web site," acknowledged Matt Belkin, who serves as vice president of best practices for Utah marketing giant Omniture, which tracks the online activities of people using Intuit's TurboTax.

An IRS spokesdroid gave the reporter the mechanic's shrug before stating

"The IRS is aware that there are many commercial companies that use Web tracking tools in conjunction with their Web sites," he said. "The IRS does not take a position on Web tracking tools."

Of course, Intuit is not the only tax prep firm on line... there are others (with whom I have no connection).
But, whatever you do, keep working for Tax Freedom Day ain't until Sunday. And, after that, you have to keep paying for Governor Molester and his cronies.