Reports also suggest that Ernst and Young and other large tax preparation firms are sending tax returns overseas for processing. But the IRS has no control over tax information once it's been sent to India or another country.
Social security, bank account, and credit card numbers aren't just data. In the wrong hands they can wipe out someone's life savings, wreck their credit and cause financial ruin.
The American people expect more from Congress. They expect fiscal responsibility and common sense. They expect us to return to the pay-as-you-go budget rules that we had enacted in the past that helped us establish a surplus, however briefly.
The budget enforcement rules of the 1990s were an important part of getting the budget back into balance. It was done on a bipartisan basis. Those pay-as-you-go rules were tested and they worked. We are now in a one-party system, and we have thrown them out.
The IRS is currently considering a rule that would make it easier for tax preparers to disclose the private information contained in tax returns - including name, address, Social Security number, employer, income, and charitable donations.
Under the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Program, homes are independently verified to be measurably more energy efficient than average houses.
We're all proud of the communities that we've built and are a part of, but we shouldn't accept lost time and unnecessary stress when traveling in them.
When I came to Congress, I came to bring what I thought was a real-world business perspective to government because, in the business world, I spent over 20 years in the high-tech industry, but it certainly was not unique.
