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TaxAct class action overview:
- Who: Plaintiff Matthew Hartz filed a class action lawsuit against TaxAct, Inc., over sharing private tax information.
- Why: The plaintiffs claim TaxAct Inc. shared key user data with Google and Facebook through coding without users’ permission.
- Where: The TaxAct class action was filed in federal court in Illinois.
Plaintiff Matthew Hartz has filed a class action lawsuit against TaxAct, Inc., claiming the company embedded code to share personal data from tax returns with both Google and Facebook.
The company has transmitted private and sensitive private information to both Facebook and Google, it stated in a recent Congressional Report, according to the TaxAct Facebook class action.
The data included the first names of dependents in a modified form, along with “full names, email, country, state, city, zip codes, phone numbers, gender, date of birth, filing status, adjusted gross income (AGI), approximate refund amount, approximate federal tax owed, web browser used, year of the return, ‘website referral, if any, and buttons that were clicked and names of text-entry forms that the taxpayer navigated to (which could indicate, for example, whether taxpayers were eligible for certain deductions or exemptions),’ “ according to the TaxAct Google class action.
The data has been shared since at least 2018 and was shared without names since at least 2014, according to the TaxAct class action. That data went well beyond previous disclosures from TaxAct.
TaxAct Google sharing was divulged in 2022 but TaxAct Facebook sharing was not, TaxAct class action says
TaxAct Google sharing was added to the company’s 2022 privacy statement but TaxAct Facebook sharing was not and has later been added, the TaxAct class action claims.
The personal information is highly valuable with users “estimated to value the restriction of improper access to their data at between $11.33 and $16.58 per website and prohibiting secondary use to between $7.98 and $11.68 per website” according to a study cited in the TaxAct class action.
A separate class action from December claimed that tax filing services were secretly transmitting data to Facebook and Meta, similar to the TaxAct Facebook class action.
Have you filed your taxes with TaxAct and had your data unknowingly shared? Let us know in the comments.
The plaintiff is represented by Spencer Sheehan of Sheehan and Associates, PC.
The TaxAct class action lawsuit is Hartz v. TaxAct Inc., Case No. 1:23-cv-04591, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division.
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153 thoughts onTaxAct class action claims company shares sensitive information with Facebook, Google
I filed through TaxAct last couple of years, was not contacted or ever made aware of their sharing information!!
Where is the sign up online claim form
I filed with them. What kind of payout are we looking at?
I filed my taxes though Tax Act. I want to check on the class action settlement.
I filed with TAXACT. And was contacted by a law firm, but have not heard anything more from them.