The Biden administration has proposed to require banks to report all data associated with transactions above $600 dollars to the “benevolent angels” at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If approved, this proposal would not go into effect until after Dec. 31, 2022.
The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 established a $10,000 trigger for the Feds to snoop in. To put that into perspective, $10,000 in 1970 equates to roughly $70,500 in 2021. Well, October of 2021, I should say (you never know what next month will bring nowadays). Hell, by the year 2023 — considering the rate of inflation — a $600 trigger may soon have banks reporting each of your weekly grocery purchases!
I’m pretty sure the other alphabet agencies (i.e., NSA, FBI, CIA) already have all of your digital transaction information anyway, but whatever. And with friends like Google, Facebook, Twitter etc., it seems there’s no escaping. (Oh, that reminds me … please follow us on Twitter @MonetaryCurrent. The NSA is, so why not join in on the fun?!)
The justification of this additional tracking is to ensure that the federal government gets their cut where they can. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, claims that over 10 years, roughly $7 trillion dollars of should-be taxes will skirt the coffers of the government. In response to the concern that this increased information collection is an invasion of privacy, Yellen simply replies,
“Collection of information is routine. … it's just a few pieces of information about people's bank accounts.”
Such a sweet old lady. What do you have to worry about?
Senator Tim Kaine also claims this is just a “routine” function of the IRS (he must’ve received the talking point memo):
"Banks have had reporting requirements for a long time, and it's to stop illicit behavior, to stop illegal behavior and make sure people are not evading taxes.”
I mean, how will the government afford to continue bombing goat herders in foreign lands if you evade payment?
Earlier this year, Biden proposed giving the IRS an extra $80 billion to step-up auditing efforts, claiming the agency would make more than $700 billion back. They see this as an investment, I guess. You know the ol’ saying, “it takes money to make money?” Yeah, they take your money, to take more of your money.
The most worrisome part of the push to track transactions is that with the IRS, you get none of that “innocent until proven guilty” stuff. You are guilty unless you keep the receipts to show otherwise. “If you aren’t doing anything wrong, what do you have to worry about,” goes the typical naive response from those that think the IRS is a group of philanthropic accountants just trying to make sure that everything is fair and square. But this new proposal would put essentially everyone (not just the fat cats) in the IRS’ cross-hairs.
The IRS doesn’t exactly have a gleaming history of benign accounting. James Bovard put together a great summary of the IRS’ sordid past. He shows that Nixon created a Special Services Staff (SSS) that targeted more than 10,000 groups and individuals because of their politics. And that Nixon also gave an enemies list to the IRS to, in the words of White House counsel John Dean, “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”
In 1995 the White House and the Democratic National Committee produced the “Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce” report that attacked those critical of Clinton. Coincidentally, who do you think the IRS hit up in the following few years?
Bovard’s piece has many more fun facts. Unfortunately, it needs an update since it was written in 2013.
So fellow serfs, prepare yourselves for further burdens bestowed upon us from the glorious Lords and Ladies of US.gov. But, I hope they understand that at some point the peasants have enough.
This Halloween I may have to break out my old IRS Auditor costume — the one with the bloody butcher’s apron and cleaver.