Top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Ways and Means Republicans today sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen expressing privacy concerns over President Biden’s proposal to surveil American’s private bank transactions.

 

In the letter, the Members wrote:

 

“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. 

 

“We recognize that even $10,000 de minimis annual threshold would sweep up the bank information of nearly every American with a job. The Administration’s proposal has rightly been criticized for its near-universal scope, its significant risk to individual privacy, and its dangerous empowerment of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).”

 

Members also pressed Secretary Yellen to address a number of unanswered questions clarifying that the IRS will not seek transactional-level data on personal and business bank accounts.

 

CLICK HERE to read the full letter.

 

READ: Ways & Means Republicans Introduce Bill Prohibiting Biden’s Invasive IRS Bank Surveillance Plan

 

BACKGROUND:

 

Democrats’ invasive, supercharged IRS spying regime will snoop on Americans’ bank transactions.

• Under the guise of going after 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 account is unacceptable to the American people.
• 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.

 

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

 

The worst part — the burden of reporting falls on families, small businesses, and local banks.

• 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.  

 

WATCH: Brady: With Its History of Political Targeting, Why Would We Reward the IRS with Greater Power Over Sensitive Taxpayer Data?

 

Republicans are fighting to stop Democrats’ plan for a supercharged IRS.

• Ways and Means Republicans introduced a bill prohibiting the Biden Administration’s plan to turn local banks into chapters of the IRS.
• 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.