3 tax prep firms shared 'extraordinarily sensitive' data about taxpayers with Meta, lawmakers say

abcnews.go.com:

Some congressional Democrats say three large tax preparation firms sent “extraordinarily sensitive” information on tens of millions of taxpayers to Facebook parent company Meta over at least two years

WASHINGTON — A group of congressional Democrats reported Wednesday that three large tax preparation firms sent “extraordinarily sensitive” information on tens of millions of taxpayers to Facebook parent company Meta over the course of at least two years.

Their report urges federal agencies to investigate and potentially go to court over the wealth of information that H&R Block, TaxAct and Tax Slayer shared with the social media giant.

In a letter to the heads of the IRS, the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the IRS watchdog, seven lawmakers say their findings “reveal a shocking breach of taxpayer privacy by tax prep companies and by Big Tech firms.”

Their report said highly personal and financial information about sources of taxpayers' income, tax deductions and exemptions was made accessible to Meta as taxpayers used the tax software to prepare their taxes.

That data came to Meta through its Pixel code, which the tax firms installed on their websites to gather information on how to improve their own marketing campaigns. In exchange, Meta was able to access the data to write targeted algorithms for its own users.

The program collected information on taxpayers’ filing status, income, refund amounts, names of dependents, approximate federal tax owed, which buttons were clicked on the tax preparers' websites and the names of text entry forms that the taxpayer navigated, the report states.

The letter to federal agencies was signed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal, Tammy