Will Congress enable the IRS to spy on you? – The Dallas Morning News

Congress is debating a massive reconciliation bill of at least $3.5 trillion (thats trillion, with a T), and a vote is expected soon. To offset the unprecedented spending, the Biden administration and its allies in Congress need to generate offsets, and what they propose puts your privacy and that of Texas small businesses in jeopardy.

Overall, the tax hike provisions of this bill are counterproductive to a resilient economy. One provision is particularly disturbing. The administration has been planning to force your bank, credit union or other financial institution to report annually on all individual and business transactions of $600 or more.

They say they want to use this information to catch wealthy tax cheats. But this is a smokescreen, because even if the wealthiest Americans were taxed at 100%, the revenue would fail to cover this economic albatross. What they really want is to empower the IRS to surveil almost all Americans to generate more tax revenue.

How do we know this is their actual intent? Since the spring, the administration has proposed to monitor all inflows and outflows (transactions). At the $600 level, few Americans would escape the dragnet. It would annually capture information on individuals, such as your credit card payments and even transactions with family and friends.

For small business owners, it would gobble up data on partner and vendor relationships to include anyone who pays you or that you may pay over the aggregate threshold amount.

As the public has become more aware of the scheme, its backers in Congress now say they will raise the dollar amount of the reporting threshold. This is a first step of their strategy to ultimately give the Internal Revenue Service power to monitor the financial information of all Americans.

It is also a Washington negotiation ploy to get moderate politicians to accept the language despite a growing outcry from citizens across the political spectrum. Members of the Texas congressional delegation should not take the bait.

Beyond paying for profligate spending, this proposal tramples on the rights of law-abiding citizens regardless of the threshold that may be set. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution exists to protect Americans from precisely this kind of government surveillance:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Such a voluminous IRS data grab without probable cause means that American citizens are to be presumed tax cheats by the IRS until eventually proven otherwise by bureaucrats. Keeping your tax records for seven years? Forget about it. The same IRS that has previously leaked confidential taxpayer information will have this information forever.

So where do you stand? For Republicans, do you trust President Joe Bidens IRS to use this information appropriately? Conversely for Democrats, would you trust Donald Trump or another Republican president with this power? Opposing this measure should unite Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Financial data contains some of the most personal information about our lives and livelihoods. This is why criminals try to steal it for their own financial benefit. Now our federal government which is supposed to protect our rights wants in on the action, too.

Texas banks value the privacy of our customers, and we are strongly opposed to this proposal. Community banks should not be forced to become de facto IRS reporting agents.

If we dont convince Congress to reject this provision immediately, the IRS will certainly be watching your family and business.

Chris Furlow is chief executive of the Texas Bankers Association. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

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Will Congress enable the IRS to spy on you? - The Dallas Morning News