According to a new revelation, private financial data used for paying taxes online has made its way to Facebook.

The Markup released the report on November 22, noting that it was co-published with The Verge.

It was stated that Americans who utilized tax preparation services such as TurboTax, H&R Block, TaxAct, Ramsey Solutions, and TaxSlayer may have been affected, as each firm gathered data differently.

According to The Markup, a piece of code known as the Meta Pixel revealed information such as income, return amounts, college scholarship amounts, and health savings account usage.

The information was transferred to Facebook regardless of whether the user had an account on Facebook or any other social media network run by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, according to the research.

Mandi Matlock, a Harvard Law School instructor who specializes in tax law, stated, “This is appalling. It truly is.”

She stated that the research demonstrates that Americans “providing some of the most sensitive information that they own, and it’s being exploited.”

According to The Markup, almost 150 million Americans submit their tax returns electronically annually, and some of the most popular e-filing tools employ the Meta Pixel.

For instance, the information Tax Act supplied to Facebook included users’ filing status, their adjusted gross income, the amount of their tax refund, and the names of their dependents, according to the report. According to the article, H&R Block supplied information on health savings accounts and college expenses for dependents.

The code helps Facebook by giving additional data for its algorithms and aids businesses who advertise on Facebook in targeting advertisements to those who may be interested in a certain product.

“The practice is ubiquitous,” Jon Callas, director of public interest technology at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Markup, adding that he was “shocked but not surprised” by the research.

The revelation reverberated across the service-providing businesses.

“H&R Block has removed the pixels from its DIY online product to stop any client tax information from being collected,” H&R Block told Fox News in a statement.

Ramsey Solutions, which utilizes TaxSlayer’s service, stated that it has followed suit.

More on this story via The Western Journal:

“We did NOT know and were never notified that personal tax information was being collected by Facebook from the Pixel,” the company said in a statement, according to The Markup. “As soon as we found out, we immediately informed TaxSlayer to deactivate the Pixel from Ramsey SmartTax.”

Meanwhile, TaxSlayer spokeswoman Molly Richardson said in an email to the outlet that the company had removed the Pixel to evaluate its use. CONTINUE READING…