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| CUNA Calls on Congressional Leaders to Oppose Increased Reporting |
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CUNA joined dozens of organizations Friday calling on Congressional leadership to oppose any efforts to advance expanded Internal Revenue Service reporting requirements. Language requiring increased reporting has been discussed as part of House infrastructure legislation, but the House Ways and Means Committee passed the bill Wednesday without including it.
Provisions requiring financial institutions to track and submit to the IRS information on the inflows and outflows of every account above a de minimis threshold of $600 during the year, including breakdowns for cash, have been discussed as part of infrastructure negotiations.
CUNA issued an action alert calling on stakeholders to share their concerns with Capitol Hill, and as of Friday more than 170,000 messages have been sent.
“While the stated goal of this vast data collection is to uncover tax dodging by the wealthy, this proposal is not remotely targeted to that purpose or that population,” reads CUNA’s joint letter to House leadership. “In addition to the significant privacy concerns, it would create tremendous liability for all affected parties by requiring the collection of financial information for nearly every American without proper explanation of how the IRS will store, protect, and use this enormous trove of personal financial information.”
A separate joint letter written to House and Senate leaders cites recent polling by Morning Consult showing two-thirds of voters (67%) oppose proposals to transfer more banking data to the IRS.
“Opposition is bipartisan, with more than half of voters (53%) strongly opposed and only 22% supportive,” the letter reads. “Indiscriminate, blanket data collection would amount to a troubling effort to profile American taxpayers based on account characteristics without grounds for suspicion of tax evasion. Such profiling is inappropriate in all law enforcement contexts.”
CUNA wrote to the House Ways and Means Committee in advance of the markup, and engaged with Leagues for support on a letter signed by more than 140 members of Congress sharing similar concerns.
CUNA continues to call on credit union advocates to use its Grassroots Action Center to send a message outlining concerns with the proposal, which has been discussed as part of the Build Better Act. Credit unions can also activate their members to send messages to Capitol Hill through CUNA’s Member Activation Program (MAP) community.
Copyright 2021. CUNA News. (link) |
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