The Vermont Department of Taxes (VDT) has fully identified all three parties that accessed personal tax data inadvertently displayed from Property Transfer Tax Returns on a vendor portion of its website on January 9th. The immediate investigation of the incident led to the following findings:
Three parties accessed the data. All three parties have been identified and contacted.
All three parties have confirmed that the data was not disseminated to other parties, and they have destroyed the data.
Two of three parties could not open or see the data file, as it was corrupted.
Given the results of this investigation, the Vermont Department of Taxes has a high degree of confidence that the risk of identity theft arising from this incident is minimal.
All affected taxpayers will receive a letter alerting them that their personal information was inadvertently disclosed. Letters will be sent no later than Saturday, January 14th. The letter encourages taxpayers affected by the inadvertent disclosure to take the following steps:
Call or email the Department of Taxes if they have questions regarding this issue. Taxpayers may call (866) 348-4038 or email questions to [email protected]
Check back for updates posted on our website at http://www.state.vt.us/tax/DataProtection.shtml. The Department will post updates through its Facebook page and Twitter account.
Learn more about credit monitoring, details to be set forth in the letter to individual taxpayers.
While the Department is highly confident that the risk to affected taxpayers is small, the Department encourages taxpayers to use these resources.
The Vermont Department of Taxes continues to review all safeguards related to the disclosure of taxpayer information. Department staff will strengthen the procedures related to the publication of this specific report. Also, standard operating procedure at VDT requires that the Taxpayer Advocate investigate and prepare a report with recommendations after any such inadvertent disclosure.
Vermont Tax Department 1.11.2011