IRS Backtracks On Sketchy Facial Recognition Plan Following Public Outcry | Mashable

Activism, it turns out, still gets results. That’s the takeaway following a Monday morning announcement that the IRS intends to shift away from requiring Americans use a private facial-recognition service to verify their identities on the IRS website. The about face comes after sustained criticism from privacy experts, grassroots activists, and even elected officials. “This is big,” wrote Senator Ron Wyden Monday morning. “The IRS has notified my office it plans to transition away from using facial recognition verification, as I requested earlier today. While this transition may take time, the administration…

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The IRS Will Soon Make You Use Facial Recognition To Access Your Taxes Online | The Verge

he Internal Revenue Service will require people who access and pay their taxes online to enroll in a third-party facial recognition company starting this summer (h/t Krebs on Security). Even those who have already registered on IRS.gov with a username and password will have to provide a government ID, a copy of a utility bill, and a selfie to ID.me, the Virginia-based identity verification company. You’ll take a video selfie with whatever webcam or mobile device you’re using to sign up, which seems likely to cause problems for people with…

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U.S. Tax Rules Raising The Stakes For Canadian Residents With American Citizenship | CBC News

Many Canadian residents with U.S. citizenship could risk fines or the closure of their banking or investment accounts in the coming months if they don’t provide financial institutions with U.S. identification numbers, officials warn. Experts say that in some cases, financial institutions may close accounts rather than face fines for not providing U.S. social security or taxpayer identification numbers for clients who could be subject to U.S. income tax, such as dual citizens. That means the stakes are about to get higher for those who haven’t been filing returns and for “accidental Americans” — Canadians…

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Nearly A Million Canadian Bank Records Sent To IRS | CBC News

The number of banking records the Canadian government is sharing with U.S. tax authorities under a controversial information-sharing deal has increased sharply, CBC News has learned. The Canada Revenue Agency sent 900,000 financial records belonging to Canadian residents to the Internal Revenue Service in September — nearly a third more than it sent the previous year. The records were for the 2018 tax year. It also has updated the number of records shared for the 2017 tax year to 700,000 from the 600,000 originally reported. Read full story here: Nearly A…

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1.6 Million Canadian Banking Records Shared With IRS | CBC News

The Canadian government has shared more than 1.6 million Canadian banking records with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service since the start of a controversial information-sharing agreement in 2014, CBC News has learned. In 2016 and again in 2017, the Canada Revenue Agency provided the IRS with information on 600,000 Canadian bank accounts each year. That’s a sharp increase from the 300,000 records shared in 2015 and the 150,000 records shared in 2014, the year the sharing began. Read full story here: 1.6 Million Canadian Banking Records Shared With IRS |…

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PSA: File Your US Tax Return Before Scammers Steal Your Refund | TechCrunch

You might have heard this story before. A scammer starts by spoofing an email pretending to be the chief executive of a company, angrily demanding that someone in accounting or human resources immediately sends over their employees’ W-2 forms “or there will be trouble!” The person doesn’t think twice, not wanting to get told off, and emails back the forms, which spell out exactly how much the employees’ earned and how much the company withheld from your wages in tax for the year. Read full story here: PSA: File Your US…

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Some Canadian Bank Record Information Being Sent Directly To IRS – Politics – CBC News

Thousands of reports containing confidential Canadian banking information records have been sent directly to the U.S Internal Revenue Service, without the Canadian government’s knowledge. According to information obtained by CBC News under a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request, 31,574 such reports have been sent directly to Internal Revenue Service over the past two years under the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). That is in addition to about 469,827 reports that the Canada Revenue Agency has transferred to the IRS under a Canada-U.S. agreement negotiated in the wake of the adoption…

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U.S. Government Suing Canadian Resident For $1.1M Over Bank Form – Politics – CBC News

The U.S. Justice Department is suing a Canadian resident for the equivalent of $1.1 million Cdn, saying he failed to file a form to the U.S. government listing his bank accounts outside the United States. Jeffrey Pomerantz, a Vancouver-area resident with dual Canadian-U.S citizenship, filed his income tax returns to the IRS and the CRA during the three years in question but didn’t file a second form called the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR). “This has been a friggin’ nightmare,” said Pomerantz when reached by CBC News. In the…

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