U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, announced Friday she is supporting the Prohibition IRS Financial Surveillance Act, legislation aimed at preventing the federal government from surveilling private bank accounts.
The congresswoman is one of 200 U.S. lawmakers who have signed on to a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressing concerns with the Biden Administration’s proposal.
“The controversial provision would grant significant surveillance authority to the IRS over millions of hardworking Americans with $10,000 or more in outflows from their accounts and is included in the Biden Administration’s $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation plan,” Herrera Beutler’s office wrote in a news release. “It has drawn opposition from a broad spectrum of small businesses and citizens for the impacts it would have.”
The news release highlighted privacy concerns, opposition from community banks, credit unions and small businesses, the impact on Americans concerned with provisions who might stop using banks and potentially more audits for low- and middle-income residents.
“Residents, small businesses and community banking institutions are outraged at this proposal to track the financial activity of a vast number of Americans with bank accounts — and rightly so,” Herrera Beutler said in a prepared statement. “Big businesses and wealthy Americans are the ones with the resources to navigate and avoid these types of government requirements; it’s middle-income Americans who will pay more in fees and have unnecessary government intrusion into their affairs as part of this IRS dragnet. I’m working to spare hardworking citizens from having their spending monitored by the IRS, and to prevent mountains of onerous regulations from being heaped on credit unions and community banks that have nothing to do with keeping tax-dodging billionaires accountable.”
As part of its “Build Back Better” plan, the Biden Administration has proposed implementing a program requiring banks and other financial institutions to provide the IRS details on their customers and data for accounts with deposits or withdrawals totaling more than $10,000.
