Press Releases
No Spying: Huizenga Calls on IRS, Biden Administration to Abandon $600 Transaction Requirement
Washington,
September 13, 2021
Today, Congressman Bill Huizenga (MI-02) joined more than 140 legislators in sending a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Charles Rettig to express his concern with a recent IRS data collection proposal that will increase tax information reporting requirements on financial institutions. Specifically, this radical proposal would require financial institutions and other financial services providers to report certain transaction level data as well as information about the outflows and inflows on accounts over $600 to the IRS every year. “This is a massive invasion of privacy for millions of Americans,” said Congressman Bill Huizenga. “This obscene proposal would allow the IRS to collect an unbelievable amount of financial data with little to no tangible benefit, while imposing significant compliance costs on our community banks, credit unions, and related financial institutions. This proposal is tantamount to spying on the financial records of law-abiding Americans and it should be abandoned immediately.” In the letter to Treasury and the IRS the Members of Congress write: “Specifically, such a proposal would require financial institutions and other financial services providers to report certain transaction level data as well as information about the outflows and inflows on accounts over $600 to the IRS every year. However, financial institutions currently report a tremendous amount of data to the IRS, and no evidence has shown that the proposed requirements would substantially aid the IRS’s efforts to close the tax gap beyond the information already at the IRS’s disposal. Not only would such an overly comprehensive IRS database require significant resources to build, maintain, and protect, but it would make the personal financial data of millions of Americans vulnerable to attack. Considering the IRS experiences 1.4 billion cyberattacks annually and has experienced multiple data breaches, we should not give this agency additional sensitive data to manage.” |