U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), in a Monday interview on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” announced that he has introduced legislation to block President Joe Biden’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposal to monitor banking transactions in excess of $600.
Currently, financial institutions are required by law to file a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) for all transactions consumers conduct which exceed $10,000. The new Biden proposal would significantly lower the reporting level to $600. The proposed measure has sparked immense backlash from the banking community and consumers alike, citing enforceability and privacy-related concerns.
Tuberville joins fellow Alabama Republicans on Capitol Hill in opposing what they see as overreach on behalf of the Biden administration.
U.S. Reps Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville), Jerry Carl (R-Mobile), Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) and Mike Rogers (R-Saks) earlier this month cosigned a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal (D-MA), Department of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commissioner Charles Rettig expressing their opposition to the proposal.
Alabama’s junior senator believes the newly-proposed measure to be an intrusion into the lives of the citizenry.
“We’ve been fighting this – the problem is they want to put hundreds of thousands of more IRS agents in play,” said Tuberville. “This is not just Republican this is Democrat too, this is American. Do you want people in your business?”
“And right now, they [IRS] can find out every $10,000 you spend, but now they want to move it all the way down to $600, to $600 dollars,” he added. “And if you go out and buy a wedding dress for your daughter, or if you go buy a gun to go hunting, if you buy plane tickets, they’re going to know everything you do.”
Should the proposal become official IRS policy, Tuberville fears that individuals’ private transactions could be placed in jeopardy of becoming public.
“And they [IRS] cannot keep a secret – they will release all your records to the media or whoever. If they don’t like you, they’re going to come after you,” said Tuberville. “All it is is the Gestapo agency for Joe Biden and we cannot allow this to happen. Today, I am dropping a bill on the floor, just in a few hours, it’s the Protect the Financial Privacy Act…. The American people don’t need the IRS in their business any more than what they are.”
Tuberville touched on Democrats’ efforts to expand State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions, which would serve to benefit higher-taxed Democrat-governed states.
He concluded, “And what they [Democrats] want to do is tax the American people, the farmers, the people in rural areas. But to make up for that they want to give the SALT reductions in terms of the limousine liberals in New York and California and give them the right to write off things to where they don’t have to pay as much taxes.”
Biden earlier this year proposed the doubling of the IRS workforce to provide an avenue for the federal government to scope out a greater amount of taxable income. According to Politico, the move calls for the hiring of nearly 87,000 agents and to boost funding for the tax collection agency by $80 billion.
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
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