tax agencies using data mining techniques

[rushpat]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20060406/...060464848db016

[BOBT12]

Originally Posted by rushpat

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20060406/...060464848db016

Thanks for the update. Things seem to be getting gloomy very quickly:

"MORE LIKE BIG BROTHER." The IRS has fallen behind the state agencies, although it has used some data mining for specific projects. For instance, in 2003 it hired an outside vendor to scrutinize information on 4,000 credit-card accounts to determine whether people were using the plastic to hide income they were stashing offshore. But IRS officials say the agency is not routinely matching tax information with data from other government sources. The IRS, in fact, is just beginning to tap state tax information.

The blossoming of data mining in tax offices has many privacy experts on edge. "This can be more like Big Brother than legitimate tax collection," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington (D.C.)-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. "There has to be oversight."

Emphasis added.

And how is that oversight working regarding the likes of the IRS now?

"The Texas comptroller's Office suspected for years that well-heeled Lone Star citizens were buying big-ticket private planes out of state to dodge sales taxes. But the tax collector couldn't prove it. Then the agency installed new computer technology that matched federal airplane registrations with state tax records. In just the past six months, Texas has collected $5 million in unpaid taxes from 43 scofflaws."


Let's see:

Six Months,

43 "Scofflaws" (ROFLMAO!)

That computes to less than 90 per year.

Wow! I am impressed at their ability to cut down on "crime"! (These people were trying to save "money")

If you know the truth, as many of us here do, it makes the state of Texas look like a bunch of doofuses.

Course, that's where "w" is from, so it makes sense.

Henry Franklin