Despite enormous opposition from the American people, Democrats are still insisting on turning local banks into chapters of the IRS to report on the gross transactions of both personal and business bank accounts.

On Wednesday, a Treasury official said that Democrats were still “trying to get this past the finish line.”

Democrats claim this snooping scheme is about closing the “tax gap” – but it’s really about going after the middle class to pay for handouts to the wealthy like expanding the SALT tax shelter for the rich, and achieving the largest expansion of the welfare state in our lifetime. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Democrats want the IRS to snoop on Americans’ bank transactions…

• Under the guise of closing the “tax gap,” President Biden has a proposal to spend $80 billion on an army of auditors and to turn local banks into chapters of the IRS to report on the gross transactions of your personal and business bank accounts.
• Every American must pay their taxes, but there’s very little evidence suggesting the IRS estimate on unpaid taxes (dubbed the “tax gap”) is accurate, given that it may be based on data from seven years ago or wild guesses on foreign transactions, cryptocurrency, concealed income, and other sectors.

WATCH: Dems’ Terrifying IRS Scheme Increases Audit Rates for Every American With a Job 

REPORT: Biden’s Tax Plan Turns IRS Into Spying Regime

…to pay for a huge tax cut for the wealthy.

• Democrats have vowed to repeal the $10,000 SALT cap before the reconciliation bill heads to the House floor – and at one point, their proposal amounted to the costliest part of Democrats’ tax hikes and spending bill at up to $475 billion according to an analysis by the left-leaning Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).

READ: Dems: Hike Taxes on Middle Class to Pay for $475B SALT Tax Shelter for Rich

READ: Fact Check: Biden’s Supercharged IRS Includes Bank Reporting, Hardships for Taxpayers

Under the IRS surveillance plan, audits will increase for taxpayers at all income levels. Farmers, families, and small businesses are the true targets of this dangerous expansion of the IRS.

• Nonpartisan CBO analysis assumes that under the President’s proposal audit rates would “rise for all taxpayers”–including EITC audits and those of other lower and middle-income workers.
• As Republicans wrote in a recent letter, “Even the $10,000 de minimis annual threshold would sweep up the bank information of nearly every American with a job.”
• According to local banks, the President’s financial reporting regime would expand the types of account holders currently subject to reporting and would require significant system changes.
• Because the reporting is different from current reporting, taxpayers will face substantial increases in tax preparation time and costs.

READ: Myth vs Fact: Opposing Biden’s Bank Surveillance Scheme

Republicans are fighting to stop Democrats’ IRS snooping scheme and protect taxpayer privacy. 

• Ways and Means Republicans are committed to protecting American taxpayers from government overreach and from breaches of privacy like the one being proposed by the Biden Administration. 
• Republicans have introduced Prohibiting IRS Financial Surveillance Act to stop the Biden Administration’s invasive snooping scheme.
• Republicans have also introduced the Tax Gap Reform and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Enforcement Act, which allows for a better understanding of the tax gap, provides smarter enforcement, ensures the IRS uses all of the resources at its disposal, and addresses the expertise gap at the IRS.
• The American people understand that this surveillance plan will be incredibly broad, and like most other government programs, Democrats will try to expand this effort in the future. 
• Given the agency’s inability to protect confidential taxpayer data over the last decade, the American people are rightfully concerned about the implications of giving the IRS a vast amount of new private data.  

READ: Top 10 Ways to Get Yourself Surveilled by the IRS

WATCH: Brady: Dems’ IRS Spying Scheme Should Frighten Every American