are my tax records private?

Answer 1

That depends. Are you the President of the United States? A Supreme Court Justice? A US Senator? They and a host of other federal employees have to make basic tax information available each year.

Apart from that, it is strictly private. As mentioned by someone else, we now have the outsourcing of tax collections at about eight times the cost of the IRS doing it. We have this crazy situation because Congress refused to appropriate money for the IRS to do it themselves but gave them funds which could be used to contract the work out (but not to hire extra IRS staff).

Answer 2

The answer to your question is yes, but with limitations. You can read IRS restrictions on the release of private tax information at http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc312.html . I must add however, in today's world little is truly confidential. Fact, the IRS is contracting with private collection agencies to collect outstanding taxes. Fact, the IRS shrares confidenital information with a vareity of state and federal agencies. Fact, IRS is composed of people, and, despite its rigid rules on preserving confidential tax information mistakes can and do happen. The reality is that all we can do is hope.

Answer 3

I assume that you mean your tax returns. They are private and not available to the public. That said, the information can be shared with other federal and state government agencies in certain cases, for example child support delinquency, social security for determining how much medicare premium you would have to pay etc.

Answer 4

well i've never seen them