Why the U.S. Must Act Now to Protect Our Online Privacy

Lawmakers need to step up. Don’t expect Big Tech to help.

By Jonathan Baron

I’m thankful for the European Union. They watch out with much more diligence to protect privacy and do so with an eye to cybersecurity as well. But at least our regulators in the U.S. are fairly good, but slow, followers.

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I was reminded of this because the other day, I received my quarterly report from DeleteMe, which I use to periodically clean up my data being bought and sold without my knowledge on the open market. Since our last report, my wife and I have had over 20 new third parties needing cleanup. Unbelievable.

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Stop Beating Up the IRS – Really

Look what these people have been asked to do over the years, and thank them.

By Jon Baron, MBA
Co-Founder and Head of Strategy at Make the Connection Inc.

During my career, IRS employees have had to react to the largest tax change ever in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 and multiple large bills in 1982 and ’83, and then very significant changes in ‘86. And there were many changes between then and now. Most were typically last-minute, retroactive bills that would generally not be acted upon until December which of course the IRS would have to implement literally within weeks for tax season.

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Virtually every president has had their stamp on the tax code, including Obama with the Affordable Care Act in 2010. And then in 2017, the 4th largest bill ever in terms of tax cuts occurred on December 22. Lots of time to plan for tax season, right? And then there was the absurd political show of creating a “post-card sized” tax return to go along with it. That exercise created a massive amount of unnecessary work. It was insane, done for purely political reasons, and it benefited no one. Among other extra work, it added the requirement to create six new schedules. And by the way, it was pretty much scrapped two years ago.

Now let’s fast forward to 2020.

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