The Senate this week shot down a measure put forward by Ranking Finance Committee Member Mike Crapo that would have stopped the IRS from gaining access to Americans’ private financial records.
The rule, which Crapo made as an amendment to Democrats’ $3.5 trillion program, was narrowly beaten 50-49. It would have stopped President Biden’s team from requiring banking institutions to report all transactions of people with over $600 in their accounts.
“The IRS reporting requirement forces these institutions to hand over detailed information based on vague and ‘flexible’ metrics, like the $600 threshold and account outflows, which are decided by the IRS,” Crapo said in a comment.
“This time-burden tosses out banking privacy in order to squeeze more money from responsible Americans and business owners,” he said. “It subjects Americans to more forceful targeting from the IRS and greater data collection, a worry that was recently made worse by a leak of private taxpayer data out of the IRS.”
While the Biden Admin. condemned the leak, it also criticized the people whose tax data was leaked for evading taxes, touting Joe Biden’s plan to expand IRS funding.
“There are more steps to ensuring that corporations, people who earn the highest income are paying their fair share, hence it is President Biden’s proposals and part of how he is arguing that we pay for his ideas,” WH Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in reply to the ProPublica news report.
The budget measure making its way through Washington would give the IRS $80 billion in new funding over the next ten years in a drive to stop tax avoidance. Much of the funding will be for hiring around 87,000 new people, Politico reported.
The regulation which is targeted by Crapo’s amendment was put forward as part of a broader drive to get tough on tax evasion, Rettig said during a Finance Committee hearing back in June.
“I have been critical of big data activities, and I’m against turning brokers and banks into government tax collectors,” the GOP senator from Idaho said. “My amendment stops the undue reporting and monitoring of sensitive taxpayer details to the IRS by banking institutions about withdrawals made by any person or business.”
Author: Scott Dowdy