Three tax prep companies may have shared your personal financial information, report says

Three tax preparation companies might have shared your personal information with Google and Facebook, according to a new congressional report released this month.

If you were one of the millions of people who used H&R Block, TaxSlayer or TaxAct to do your taxes, your information could have been shared with those platforms.

“Every single taxpayer who used their websites to file their taxes could have had at least some of their data shared,” the congressional report said.

The report follows a story from The Markup, a nonprofit journalism outlet, and called the data sharing “outrageous,” according to The Washington Post. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led the investigation alongside six other Democratic lawmakers.

The three companies said they have removed or disabled the pixels that allowed this to happen, but the pixels were used “for at least a couple of years,” USA Today reported.

What information was shared and how was it used?

The companies used pixels to track information you typed into their websites, such as your income, refund amount, marriage status or if you have children. It even could have included buttons you clicked.

And Meta used that information to target Facebook ads and train Meta’s algorithms. Data was shared with Google, but the company said it never used it to track people, according to The Washington Post.

Lawmakers urged the Justice Department to charge the tax companies for violating laws preventing tax preparers from sharing information. Generally, accountants sharing personal financial information could face a $1,000 fine for each violation and a year in prison.

This is also happening while the IRS is getting ready to launch a pilot program of a free, direct tax filing option in 2024.

Tax prep companies have spent millions lobbying against free filing, a service 72% of taxpayers are in favor of, according to Investopedia and an IRS survey.

What’s next?

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a lawsuit against the three companies on Thursday.

The lawsuit alleges the firms violated Missouri’s consumer protection law when they shared personal information, The Kansas City Star reported, and asks a judge to issue a permanent injunction against the companies.

“The last thing we need is for Big Tech giants to have access to personal information because these tax companies decided to evade the law,” Bailey said in a statement Thursday. “My office isn’t standing for it.”

The lawsuit says Meta had access to the following information:

• Names

• Health savings account contributions

• College tuition grants, scholarship and educational expenses

• Whether the consumer visited pages related to dependents

• Whether the consumer visited pages related to certain types of income (such as rental income or capital gains)

• Whether the consumer visited pages related to certain tax credits or deductions

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