Don’t give the IRS access to more of your data

Turn on cable news and you would think that Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on anything, and that bipartisanship is nothing but fantasy. But dig a little deeper, and you will find commonsense policies that Republicans and Democrats should see eye to eye on. Protecting sensitive and personal data of taxpayers should be one of these obvious bipartisan priorities.

As a state Senator, I am committed to protecting the personal privacy and data security of my fellow Montanans. In fact, I introduced the constitutional amendment voters approved last year to modernize the state Constitution by explicitly requiring state and local governments to get a warrant before accessing private electronic data. This amendment passed with an overwhelming 82 percent of the vote.

Although this amendment represents much-needed progress in data protection, I can’t help but feel as though the federal government is taking two steps backwards with a congressional proposal that would expose millions of taxpayers to data breaches, hackers,and identity theft.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and her progressive allies in Congress are pushing legislation that would require the Internal Revenue Service to file tax returns on behalf of taxpayers. In spite of the IRS’ long history of misusing taxpayer data, Congress has already allocated $15 million to study the feasibility of this bad idea.

Building and running a complicated government-run tax preparation system will require the IRS to collect highly sensitive information from taxpayers, including data that the agency does not currently have. The IRS cannot be trusted with protecting this private data. On numerous occasions already, hackers have been able to breach IRS systems and the agency’s website, stealing taxpayers’ sensitive information, like Social Security numbers, and exposing hundreds of thousands of Americans to identify theft.

For more than a year between 2015 and 2016, the IRS also failed to inform more than 700,000 taxpayers that hackers accessed their personal information through the agency. Despite being responsible for this massive data breach, the IRS did nothing to help the victims.

One taxpayer said, “Short of changing your social security number, which I understand only witness protection program victims can do, we don’t really have a solution yet.”

And, sometimes, it doesn’t even take a breach! Late last year, the IRS “inadvertently” published confidential and personal data of more than 112,000 taxpayers on its own website. And this information stayed up on the agency’s website for more than a month before anything was done about it.

There’s good reason why Montanans turn to their local accountant, tax professional, or trusted online software during tax season. These private sector services have a fiduciary responsibility to their customers, and they take meaningful and significant steps to protect their sensitive data, including investing in the latest and most advanced cybersecurity measures. Meanwhile, the IRS is still operating computer systems that are decades out of date.

Giving the IRS access to taxpayers’ sensitive data and information is not just bad policy, it’s bad politics. A national poll conducted by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance found that more than 75 percent of voters would oppose a government-run tax preparation system, while 60 percent would vote against political leaders who support such a proposal.

I don’t see eye to eye on many issues with Sen. Jon Tester, but data security isn’t a red or a blue issue — it’s one that literally affects all of us in this day and age. I urge Tester to work across the aisle and oppose this misguided IRS-run tax preparation system that would unnecessarily compromise Montanans data security and potentially expose millions of taxpayers to cybersecurity breaches.

State Sen. Ken Bogner, R-Miles City.