Republicans counter Democrat proposal increasing IRS oversight

U.S. Reps. Ron Estes (R-KS), Sam Graves (R-MO), and 120 GOP members, including all U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Republicans, support new legislation to counter a current Democrat proposal that would give the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) new power to spy on Americans’ private bank information.

“This isn’t about catching wealthy tax cheats, it’s about collecting massive troves of financial information on every American family,” said Rep. Graves. “It’s wrong and I’m going to do everything I can to stop it.”

“This Democrat legislation that the Biden administration supports will allow the IRS to spy on bank accounts with as little as $600,” Rep. Estes said. “This is an invasive overreach of the federal government to track every penny you earn and spend. This bill from Ways and Means Republicans will give taxpayers the protections they need.”

The Prohibiting IRS Financial Surveillance Act, H.R. 5586, proposed on Oct. 15 by bill sponsor U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA) and 90 original cosponsors, including Reps. Estes and Graves, would ban the IRS from implementing any new individual account reporting requirements proposed under President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan for banks and other financial institutions, according to a bill summary provided by the lawmakers.

“This IRS surveillance scheme would scoop up virtually every American’s private banking information,” Rep. Graves said. “That isn’t by mistake, it’s by design.”

Rep. Estes also joined 17 of his House colleagues to express “serious privacy concerns” over President Biden’s proposal to surveil Americans’ private bank transactions in an Oct. 18 letter sent to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. 

“We are skeptical of the need for this dangerous expansion of IRS oversight into the daily lives of Americans, have reason to believe the true targets are farmers, families, and small businesses, and question the IRS’s capacity to protect this unprecedented amount of personal banking information,” wrote Rep. Estes and his colleagues, who included U.S. Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), Mike Kelly (R-PA), Tom Rice (R-SC), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), Jackie Walorski (R-IN), Darin LaHood (R-IL), and Carol Miller (R-WV).

Given inconsistent messaging surrounding Biden’s proposal, they asked for clarification from the administration on the scope and impact of the bank surveillance proposal and requested that Yellen answer several questions by Oct. 28.

For instance, they requested confirmation that the administration is no longer proposing to collect any transaction-level data on personal and business bank accounts, and if the IRS has a plan for utilizing information received from bank surveillance as a means to increase compliance in the absence of transaction-level data and an increase in the de minimis threshold above $600, according to their letter.