Washington,
D.C.–U.S. Senator Mike
Crapo (R-Idaho), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, issued
the following statement on continued efforts to include a reporting scheme in
the Democrats’ reckless tax-and-spend legislation under which financial
intermediaries report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on customer
deposits and withdrawals.
“Americans
are justifiably concerned about providing sensitive customer data to the IRS,
an agency with an extensive history of leaks, hacks and other violations of
taxpayer confidentiality. They loudly rejected the IRS bank reporting
dragnet, and it was rightly left out of the House’s reckless tax-and-spending
legislation. Unfortunately, news articles are reporting that the
Administration is again trying to include this harmful provision in the Senate
version of the bill. Americans must continue to loudly reject this
dragnet that would force community banks and credit unions to report sensitive
and private customer data of law-abiding taxpayers to the IRS in order to raise
more money by snooping through customer accounts.
“Equally concerning, the House-passed
bill contains an IRS enforcement provision and $80 billion in funding to
conduct additional audits on everyday Americans and write unspecified
regulations. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the
$80 billion in mandatory IRS funding would yield $127 billion in budget savings
over 10 years, not the $400 billion the Administration claims could be used to
pay for its reckless tax-and-spending spree. When all the gimmicks and
sunsets are taken into account, it is clear that the bill is not fully paid
for, and the true cost is closer to $4.9 trillion, not $2.4 trillion, according
to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.”