Biden’s New Multitrillion Dollar Budget Gives Him Access Into Your Personal Accounts
As part of the $3.5 trillion budget plan proposed by President Biden and the Democratic Party, the federal government will monitor gross inflows and withdrawals from Americans’ bank accounts, raising concerns that the federal government will be intentionally breaching the Fourth Amendment.
“The proposal would require banks to report to gross inflows and outflows to the IRS, including transactions from Venmo, PayPal, crypto exchanges and the like in an effort to fight tax evasion,” the Daily Mail noted, adding, “The IRS would know how much money is in an individual’s bank account in a given year, whether the individual earned income on that account and exactly how much was going in an and out.”
According to Patrick Hedger, vice president of policy at the Taxpayers’ Protection Alliance, the IRS is first and foremost a law enforcement agency and the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures in the course of, or in the course of looking for, wrongdoing and criminal actions. “I believe this will face significant Fourth Amendment opposition,” he said.
He went on to say:
You’re going to push more folks into small cash transactions, you’re going to push more banking offshore … the big fish out there that do have sizable assets that are eligible for taxation offshore. This is the ultimate regressive tax. You’re going to end up punishing the worst off among us … the lower-income folks in this country have historically been the targets of aggressive IRS audits because they don’t have the CPAs and the lawyers to be able to fight back. I don’t see why they need to be going after people, you know, just the average, the average Joe and start stooping on, you know, a $600 payment. It doesn’t make any sense, these, this is, I mean this is beyond trying to pick out low hanging fruit.
According to a letter sent to the Senate Subcommittee on Finance by a group that included the American Bankers Association, the Bank Policy Institute, and the Consumer Bankers Association:
This proposal will have real costs, not only for the government, but also for financial institutions, small businesses, and individual taxpayers.; Considering all the existing tax and other compliance reporting responsibilities already borne by the financial services industry, we have serious reservations regarding the efficacy of yet another reporting requirement.
Assuming taxpayers have a responsibility to “reconcile” whatever information is provided to them and the IRS by financial institutions, this new reporting structure could create a significant burden on individuals and businesses subject to the requirement – the majority of whom will have nothing inherently suspicious about their returns.
Given the substantial burden that this proposed reporting requirement would create on businesses, individual taxpayers and financial institutions, it is imperative that the benefits of implementation materially outweigh the costs and risk associated with this large-scale collection of sensitive personal financial information.