[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 185 (Thursday, October 21, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S7150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Internal Revenue Service

  Mr. CASSIDY. Madam President, the IRS should not have the right to 
spy on American bank accounts, period.
  We all know the list of reasons why the Democrats' $3.5 trillion tax-
and-spend spree is a disaster. It will bury the American people in a 
mountain of debt, crushing inflation, and require new taxes. The 
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, nonpartisan, warns that 
this spree could exceed $5 trillion in terms of the deficit.
  But aside from the economic disaster of this tax-and-spending spree, 
the White House and congressional Democrats want to force banks to 
report details of every American's bank account to the IRS. This is 
nothing less than mass, indiscriminate government surveillance of 
Americans, giving IRS bureaucrats unfettered access to Americans' 
personal private finances, which is a gross invasion of privacy and an 
abuse of power.
  Democrats said that this reporting requirement will only target the 
rich. But, according to the New York Times, the Biden administration's 
original plan was to have banks ``provide data for accounts with total 
annual deposits or withdrawals worth more than $600.'' That is $600 
over the course of a year.
  I don't know if I can think of anyone other than maybe the 8-year-old 
child whose parents opens an account for them to have an account. No 
one else who has an account will have less than $600 in transactions 
over the course of a year. This would lead to almost every American's 
financial banking information being transferred to the IRS, and this is 
what the Biden administration is advocating for.
  If you are a small business owner, it will be as if you are spied 
upon. If you are a family looking to buy your first home, you will be 
as if spied upon. If you sell your neighbors some fishing rods, hey, 
the IRS is going to know about it. If you are a single working mom 
trying to take care of your children paying for daycare, they will know 
about it.
  But now some are saying we will raise the cutoff to $10,000. But that 
doesn't mean that they will limit their espionage, if you will, to 
transactions over $10,000. No, this will say that anyone with more than 
$10,000 transactions on an annual basis, cumulatively, out of a single 
bank account, that will have to be reported. And there is the rub. It 
changes almost nothing. Most Americans still fall within this category 
and will be caught within the surveillance scheme.
  If you pay rent, you will be spied upon. If you buy a new car to 
drive your child safely to and from school, the IRS will know it. This 
is wrong. On top of a clear violation to our right to privacy, it is 
also just terrible policy. The reporting requirements in the $3.5 
trillion Democratic only, no Republicans, tax-and-spend spree will 
create an unreasonable burden on banks and credit unions to report and 
record massive amounts of debt.
  Lastly, let's think about why this bill--reconciliation, Democrat-
only play--why it wants keys to your bank account. They need it to help 
spend for the $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending spree--3.5 trillion, with 
a ``t'', dollars. They say they are only going to catch ultrawealthy 
tax cheats. That will be a good thing, but that is not what this 
legislation does. This legislation doesn't look at the ultrawealthy. It 
looks at all of us.
  Now, no one wants people to cheat on their taxes. The people who are 
cheating should be caught. Republicans have always supported people 
paying the taxes they owe. What we oppose is a bill with not a single 
substantive committee hearing in the Senate, which will be pushed 
through on a strictly party-line vote, in which the American people's 
concerns about this level of surveillance of their bank accounts goes 
without comment and in which the bill directs the IRS to know details 
of almost every single American's bank account. That is what we object 
to.
  Democrats are showing us the harm government can do when they don't 
care about citizens' privacy. They are showing their real priority. It 
is having an ability to look into our lives on a scale previously 
unimaginable. It is unacceptable, un-American, and should be opposed.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). The Senator from Nevada.

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