Crapo: Americans Must Continue to Reject Invasive IRS Bank Reporting Scheme

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.”