Voting and paying taxes are still hand in hand. The IRS has admitted that it has collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states, while vowing that it has never used the information. This, of course, begs the question “why do it?”
The states for which political party affiliation data were collected are Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin. In these states, voters must register as a member of a party and this information is publicly available.
The IRS has advised that outside vendors collected this information while scouring databases searching for those who owed money for tax debts. This is troubling. Congress has debated whether collections from outside agencies should remain, addressing concerns about the policy including charges of corruption from the agencies chosen as vendors. It is disconcerting that this information will be in the hands of those who might use it for inappropriate reasons and might, as a result, discourage citizens from registering to vote.
And again, if the IRS claims that the information is not relevant and not used, why collect it at all?
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