EDITOR:
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has no business snooping through our bank accounts-but that’s exactly what they’re trying to do. Buried deep within the Administration’s proposed budget is a sneaky little provision that would require banks large and small to report all transaction data for every bank account with more than $600 of deposits or withdrawals in a year.
That’s virtually every American’s bank account. That not only places a huge reporting burden on small community banks, but it’s a huge invasion of our privacy. The IRS’s job is to collect taxes, not collect every piece of private financial data from every American they can.
That’s why I voted to finally put this crazy idea to bed. Sadly, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don’t see things the same way and voted against prohibiting the IRS from collecting the private financial data from virtually every American citizen.
I’m not sure what world they’re living in, but this isn’t and shouldn’t be a partisan issue. I think virtually every American can agree that the IRS shouldn’t be sweeping up data on every financial transaction between law-abiding Americans.
Quite frankly, I don’t trust them to keep our private financial data secure. After all, they don’t have the best track record of doing that. They just had a major leak in July and they still haven’t gotten to the bottom of that. I can’t imagine how devastating a leak like that would be if they had a huge database containing almost every American’s bank account information.
On top of that, they can’t even seem to get people’s refunds out the door from earlier this year. The number of folks I’m helping navigate the IRS bureaucracy continues to grow and I’d be glad to help you too if you’re having an issue with them. That said, they need to actually do the job they are supposed to be doing, and not be entertaining the idea of additional duties like snooping on our bank accounts.
Thankfully, it looks like this terrible proposal has been shelved for now, but that’s no reason for us to take our eye off the ball. We have to make our voices heard, loud and clear.
The IRS needs to keep their nose out of our bank accounts.
—Sam Graves
Congressman
Sixth District
