- Jun 6, 2007
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It almost seemed like America's government in Washington was going to actually work on a major issue with the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal but then we heard last week it fell through with the Republicans failing to agree to the "enforced enhancement" mechanisms for the IRS in the bill what a disappointment for the American people with today's Washington unable to agree on the easiest of bill's an infrastructure bill! The Democrats want the legislation to require banks to report yearly aggregate inflows and outflows on bank accounts so to help the IRS to identify those taxpayers that are wrongfully not reporting income when they file their taxes; this overall is a good and legitimate policy move, the Republicans are wrong to oppose it!
I get it that Republicans don't want the IRS harassing small businesses with tax audits because of a relatively minor disparity between their deposits and withdraws for their bank accounts, but studies indicate that a lot of taxpayers are not reporting income and that the American people are being cheated out of a large amount of tax revenue and this mechanism is very reasonable to identify the tax cheats. The law requires employers to report the earnings of their employees to the IRS, the law requires brokerage businesses to report dividend, interest, and capital gain revenue of individual account holders to the IRS, why not banks for bank accounts? The Republicans are historically supposed to be the political party that stands for personal responsibility, respect for the law and honesty which all means you don't cheat on your taxes and a Party that stands for those values shouldn't be blocking a reasonable tool to stop this cheating. To address these Republican concerns about stopping the harassing and burdening of people by the IRS when there is no tax cheating going on the bill could restrict the reporting obligation on banks to those "business" accounts where the yearly deposits are three million dollars or greater and for "individual" accounts where the yearly deposits are one million dollars or greater this would exclude the majority of U.S. taxpayers from any burden associated with this new power of the IRS.
It really seems like the Republicans are not being too wise here because this Democrat decision to give the IRS a huge amount of additional resources and some significant tools to collect more tax revenue is going to happen definitely through the budget reconciliation process President Biden is hell bent on the idea and he has the power to get it done. Republicans would be optimally prudent to use the bipartisan infrastructure bill to shape the whole policy initiative and put in protections to stop IRS abuses. Why don't the Republicans negotiate in the bill for these bank reporting mandates to codify into law the Treasury regulations that stopped the abuses by the IRS that took place in the Obama administration against conservative groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax exempt status. Why don't the Republicans negotiate into the bill a restriction on the new revenue flowing into the IRS that a very high portion must stick to this purported purpose cited by the Democrats enforcement of the code against tax cheats so the Democrats don't in the future divert these new IRS resources to staff whose work harasses and obstructs conservative organizations. Why don't the Republicans negotiate into the bill a penalty to stop an individual or individuals in the IRS management from using IRS tax audits and IRS tax prosecutions for a personal agenda(s) (including political motivation) doing such an act is grounds for termination even for the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
Commentary in the media about the hoped for effectiveness of increasing resources for the IRS and their then using those resources to stop tax delinquents fails to address an important point. Americans aren't stupid people if Washington pours resources into the IRS enabling them to be eagle eyed and loaded for bear, many many taxpayers will voluntarily stop their tax cheating because they don't want to go through the onerous process of an IRS tax avoidance investigation and prosecution so the U.S. treasury will get a lot more tax revenue because of the IRS significantly increased ability to catch tax cheats! This policy initiative is needed in America!
I get it that Republicans don't want the IRS harassing small businesses with tax audits because of a relatively minor disparity between their deposits and withdraws for their bank accounts, but studies indicate that a lot of taxpayers are not reporting income and that the American people are being cheated out of a large amount of tax revenue and this mechanism is very reasonable to identify the tax cheats. The law requires employers to report the earnings of their employees to the IRS, the law requires brokerage businesses to report dividend, interest, and capital gain revenue of individual account holders to the IRS, why not banks for bank accounts? The Republicans are historically supposed to be the political party that stands for personal responsibility, respect for the law and honesty which all means you don't cheat on your taxes and a Party that stands for those values shouldn't be blocking a reasonable tool to stop this cheating. To address these Republican concerns about stopping the harassing and burdening of people by the IRS when there is no tax cheating going on the bill could restrict the reporting obligation on banks to those "business" accounts where the yearly deposits are three million dollars or greater and for "individual" accounts where the yearly deposits are one million dollars or greater this would exclude the majority of U.S. taxpayers from any burden associated with this new power of the IRS.
It really seems like the Republicans are not being too wise here because this Democrat decision to give the IRS a huge amount of additional resources and some significant tools to collect more tax revenue is going to happen definitely through the budget reconciliation process President Biden is hell bent on the idea and he has the power to get it done. Republicans would be optimally prudent to use the bipartisan infrastructure bill to shape the whole policy initiative and put in protections to stop IRS abuses. Why don't the Republicans negotiate in the bill for these bank reporting mandates to codify into law the Treasury regulations that stopped the abuses by the IRS that took place in the Obama administration against conservative groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax exempt status. Why don't the Republicans negotiate into the bill a restriction on the new revenue flowing into the IRS that a very high portion must stick to this purported purpose cited by the Democrats enforcement of the code against tax cheats so the Democrats don't in the future divert these new IRS resources to staff whose work harasses and obstructs conservative organizations. Why don't the Republicans negotiate into the bill a penalty to stop an individual or individuals in the IRS management from using IRS tax audits and IRS tax prosecutions for a personal agenda(s) (including political motivation) doing such an act is grounds for termination even for the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
Commentary in the media about the hoped for effectiveness of increasing resources for the IRS and their then using those resources to stop tax delinquents fails to address an important point. Americans aren't stupid people if Washington pours resources into the IRS enabling them to be eagle eyed and loaded for bear, many many taxpayers will voluntarily stop their tax cheating because they don't want to go through the onerous process of an IRS tax avoidance investigation and prosecution so the U.S. treasury will get a lot more tax revenue because of the IRS significantly increased ability to catch tax cheats! This policy initiative is needed in America!
