I can't see myself giving AMEX tax returns for a CC. Even when my score gets to where it needs to be for them to approve me, they can take that card and shove it where the sun dont shine if they ever want tax returns from me.
@android01 wrote:+1000. There is far more information in a tax return than just income information. No credit card is worth that level of intrusion. I'm still somewhat surprised that some people would submit to this just to say they have an AMEX card in their wallet. If AMEX is going to require this to extend credit, they should do it at application time vs. somewhere down the road when they see you spending outside of your "pattern" etc.
For me, it is not that. I have 3 Amex cards and I use one as my daily card and would hate to lose it and its rewards. I don't keep it to say I have one... I don't personally find it that intrusive for a person or two from Amex to see my tax returns. I'm obviously in the minority here but that's just my opinion. My tax return doesn't define me. Someone seeing some numbers for a few seconds doesn't bother me. Heck, I'd rather Amex see the numbers than the IRS! The request really wouldn't bother me except to be deemed a small inconvenience.
Other credit card issuers ask if you have a checking/savings/money market (some landlords ask this too) account. What good is it to ask that if the potential lender doesn't even know how much is in there? One can have a bunch of accounts but barely any money. It's too time consuming, expensive and unnecessary to request everyone, upon application, to send in the 4506T. It's here and there, and from what I've read, I believe it's usually for a specific reason.
Starting Score: 648
Let us know how it goes DI. Sure it will be fine.
How many millions of cards does Amex have out there? How many FR's can they do per year? I'm sure they have their audit triggers just like the IRS does. It IS voluntary; people don't have to provide the Tax info if they don't want to. Amex doesn't have to issue a card if they don't want to. I do think there would be less hard feelings on cardholders' part if they DID ask for the 4506T PRIOR to issuing the card. But that would no doubt add significantly to their new account acquisition cost, and probably reduce the number of approvals. But as some have said, even a 4506T is no guarantee. Ask those who lent Bernie Madoff money, with or without access to his tax returns...
For me, I don't care, I have nothing to hide, I am always completely truthful on my accounts, and the other thing, our financial situations change over time. When I'm 75 I probably won't be making what I make now, so will they FR me when I hit 65? 68 ? 74??
Who knows, and as someone else suggested-- I have a stack of credit cards in the SD. If I decide to deep 6 the Amex cards for any reason, there are plenty of unused credit cards waiting to take their place. I would never put my credit needs in the hands of just one company, any more than I would put all of my money in one bank. Competition is good for consumers.
I think they want tax returns because there are a lot of people who are self-employed or don't have income reporting on W-2's. Does anyone know if an 4506T gives someone an actual copy of your return or is it a summary or transcript of the 1040 only? I would like to know those answers, because the 2 pages from a 1040 could be summarized or redacted leaving out more sensitive stuff in favor of what they'd really want: income, AGI and taxes paid/due.
As for the HHI questions, I appreciated that discussion. Amex apps had asked for HHI for a long time I think.
I just looked at an app just now, and it now says Total Annual Income. I do not know when they changed that.
I always felt HHI was appropriate in some cases, because in many households, more than one person contributes to the income that makes the mortage payment. And most credit apps want to know what your mortgage payment is, so it is distorting the income/expense ratio for an individual if a large mortgage payment was considered without weighing it against both incomes... HHI. But, I understand the fix was intended to help reduce mistakes in the credit markets.
Of course everyone has their own opinion, but the way I look at it, I'd rather give copies of my tax returns to Amex than pay someone to prepare my taxes for me (which many people do). I prefer to do my own taxes because 1) I don't trust someone else to save me the most money possible on my taxes, and 2) I don't want some random person seeing all of that information on me. However, with a company like Amex, I wouldn't hesitate sending my tax returns over as I would just see it as part of doing business with that company. At my work, we request several years of tax returns, profit and loss statements, bank statements, credit reports, etc. from prospective tenants before we rent to them. IMO, it all depends on the type of business and how desirable the product is that they are offering. Just my two cents...
Well, FWIW:
It's July and lots of vacations.
They have probably cut back staff like every other company
and those who are left are trying to somehow do more than ever, correctly and on time.
It's the same everywhere these days.
Not sure how much you can read into it, she probably has a current FR backlog of 200 cardholders.
Who knows?