The usually helpful Geoffrey A. Fowler’s article in today’s Washington Post reveals that Turbo Tax and H&R Block want our tax data “to target you with “offers” — or, as they’re more commonly known, advertisements.” For them to take and keep these data we must agree. Mr. Fowler asks, “did you know that by clicking ‘agree’ to some of their privacy prompts, you may be letting them use you?” “Tax Prep Privacy”
Wow. Econ Prof Coats was immediately aroused.
Turbo Tax, like any other company, is in business to make money. It makes money by developing products we like enough to pay for. We are presumably better off as a result. In looking for tax assistance software, we can search the web for what we think would be useful. Or, if Turbo Tax has developed something they anticipate we would like but might not know about, they can advertise it in the hopes that we will be interested and try their new product. Or if they have information from our earlier tax returns that enable them to refine their list of who might benefit from their product, they can target only those specific individuals with their “ad” while sparing millions of others from getting the ads they have no interest in. Like most economic transactions, this would be win-win.
I clicked “agree.”
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Author: Warren Coats
I specialize in advising central banks on monetary policy and the development of the capacity to formulate and implement monetary policy. I joined the International Monetary Fund in 1975 from which I retired in 2003 as Assistant Director of the Monetary and Financial Systems Department. While at the IMF I led or participated in missions to the central banks of over twenty countries (including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgystan, Moldova, Serbia, Turkey, West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Zimbabwe) and was seconded as a visiting economist to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1979-80), and to the World Bank's World Development Report team in 1989. After retirement from the IMF I was a member of the Board of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority from 2003-10 and of the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review from 2010-2017. Prior to joining the IMF I was Assistant Prof of Economics at UVa from 1970-75. I am currently a fellow of Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. In March 2019 Central Banking Journal awarded me for my “Outstanding Contribution for Capacity Building.” My recent books are One Currency for Bosnia: Creating the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina; My Travels in the Former Soviet Union; My Travels to Afghanistan; My Travels to Jerusalem; and My Travels to Baghdad. I have a BA in Economics from the UC Berkeley and a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago. My dissertation committee was chaired by Milton Friedman and included Robert J. Gordon.
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