The Treasury Department and the IRS are concerned about the potential risk for identity theft involved with donee reporting given that donees will be collecting donors' taxpayer identification numbers and maintaining those numbers for some period of time. The Treasury Department and the IRS request comments on whether additional guidance is necessary regarding the procedures a donee should use in soliciting and maintaining a donor's taxpayer identification number and address to mitigate the risk.
The actual text also states/claims that this proposal is motivated by taxpayers who have complained that getting a "contemporaneous written acknowledgment (CWA) from the donee organization" is inconvenient and that they would rather just reveal their social security numbers so that the need for the CWA can be eliminated.
“The actual text also states/claims that this proposal is motivated by taxpayers who have complained that getting a “contemporaneous written acknowledgment (CWA) from the donee organization” is inconvenient and that they would rather just reveal their social security numbers so that the need for the CWA can be eliminated.”
I call BS on that one.
Saaaay. I think you’re right. This might well be in response to a “petition for rulemaking.” In this case maybe some gang of miscreants put in a request for this with the long term goal of suppressing charitable contributions. Atheists would find that particularly appealing due to the negative repercussions on churches.
Hard to believe but true: sometimes even the bureaucrats aren’t interested in the really stupid proposals. But they need some justification for saying NO.