Email Message

[Christian]

Have any of you received an email offering to sell you information on the number of efiles submitted by other practitioners in your area? I received one and was really surprised and I wondered if the IRS could be releasing this private information into the public domain. This could be a scam but I thought I would pass it on for what it's worth.

KC being new to this board I would still wish you to know you have my heartfelt sympathy in your loss.

[jainen]

>>information on the number of efiles submitted by other practitioners in your area<<

Not a scam, and not private information. It's just a bunch of statistics---the commercial product might be packaged nicely, but the source data is free on the IRS website. http://www.irs.gov/uac/e-File-Demographic-Data. The IRS wants to help "focus your marketing, thereby increasing the numbers of electronically filed returns."

[ILLMAS]

Maybe it's the same email I received, I only read the first lines stating that I had sent XXX number of efile for 2011. But I don't think it's the IRS disclosing this information, it's probably ATX or the company that transmits the returns electronically, nothing ilegal about that, companys always sell email addresses or data.

[BulldogTom]

>>information on the number of efiles submitted by other practitioners in your area<<

Not a scam, and not private information. It's just a bunch of statistics---the commercial product might be packaged nicely, but the source data is free on the IRS website. http://www.irs.gov/u...emographic-Data. The IRS wants to help "focus your marketing, thereby increasing the numbers of electronically filed returns."

That is actually an interesting site to comb through for marketing information. I found it valuable to look up my "new" hometown and see how many EFIN's were out there and how many returns were being processed.

Tom

Hollister, CA

[mcb39]

As I posted in a different thread, my information as to how many returns was incorrect.