Income Tax, Privacy Laws and the Failure to Protect Abducted Children
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Surprisingly, Washington Federal treasury officials found an odd connection linking tax returns and cases of missing children. They scrutinized more than 1,700 of these cases and found an atypical pattern. Over 1/3 of these children had been acknowledged on tax returns by family members that are suspects for their kidnap. Many child abduction cases are still left unanswered and the children still gone.
A Senator and missing children’s advocate are working to connect with law enforcement agencies. They suggested that tax returns of suspected abductors hold data that might show the way to the suspects. They also recommended that law enforcement agencies should be approved to examine the tax return information of these “suspects”. They think that these would help resolve the cases across the U.S.
The Senator argued that tax return records should not be as privileged as what the state suggests. There should be some degree of leniency since they contain information that could probably lead to the solution of these cases. The Senator describes that overprotecting tax information data as making “no sense”. He was a past Hennepin County attorney. The state should not only keep privacy, it should also attempt everything feasible in trying to learn where the kids are.
Divulging tax information to law enforcers would generate more issues. Of the numerous privacy laws, those that revolve around taxes are one of the strongest in the US. Infringing on the privacy of tax information data would also invite other compelling challenges. Those of health care information and other government services are good examples.
The children’s advocate lost a son named Jacob. He was kidnapped in the vicinity of their St. Joseph home in 1989 at age 11. He is still missing. The missing child advocate said that they don’t “care about jurisdictional boundaries” and all they care about as parents is “getting their child back”. The missing child advocate said this in a testimony in the course of the congressional panel hearing in support of the Senators bill.
The senator noted that IRS grants disclosure of tax information data in selected situations such as past due student loans. This is a portion of a list of exceptions in the tax involving privacy. She further stated that missing children shouldn’t be disqualified from the list. It is understandable that there should be a balance between protecting privacy rights and finding missing children.
While normally we write about using an anonymous proxy to protect your online privacy, child safety trumps privacy. There is nothing that is more important than defending children.
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