$275K Settlement Reached Over Taxpayer Data Sharing with Meta and Google

TaxAct, a tax preparation service, has agreed to pay $275,000 to the State of Connecticut for sharing sensitive taxpayer data with Meta and Google.

The settlement comes after an investigation by the attorney general found that TaxAct used third-party tracking technologies through Meta and Google for internal data analytics and marketing between January 2018 and December 2022.

TaxAct's contract with Meta allowed the company to use taxpayer data without any limits on how it could be used, including sharing with other third parties. This was despite TaxAct's privacy notices promising to safeguard consumer privacy and prohibit third-party sharing of TaxAct data.

The investigation revealed that TaxAct shared detailed financial information for its customers, including rounded adjusted gross income, tax refunds, taxes owed, types of income and deductions, and charitable contributions.

TaxAct's new ownership has cooperated with the state investigation. As part of the settlement, TaxAct will implement new safeguards to monitor and govern third-party tracking on their site.