Scott: Democrats’ IRS Snooping Plan Hurts Americans Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) spoke out against the Democrats’ plans to give the IRS access to the bank information of virtually every American during a Senate Banking Committee hearing and a Senate GOP press conference.  

Click to watch Senator Scott’s questions at the hearing

On the IRS investigating every American’s accounts … “It would be impossible for me not to ask a question about the current proposals coming out of the administration as it relates to the ability to investigate and/or have access to every transaction in every American’s banking accounts or financial accounts based on simply $600 of flow coming through. I know that some proposals have $600; others have $10,000. The challenge is, whether it’s $600 or $10,000, it captures basically the same number of accounts.”

On enlarging big government … “If you’re looking for tax cheats, that is a terrible way of figuring it out. But if you are, in fact, looking at a big-government proposal to have the ability to investigate every single transaction of a financial institution of your account, my account, and their accounts… well, this might be a good direction to go in.”

On burdening working-class Americans … “If you’re looking to simply find the tax cheats of the top one percent or two percent of Americans, you don’t need a threshold of $600. You don’t need a threshold of $10,000. Frankly, you don’t even need a threshold of $100,000 dollars. What this threshold of $600 or $10,000 does is it captures all the information, all the transactions of everyday Americans, not the rich ones, but the ones working paycheck-to-paycheck. … That’s not about millionaires and billionaires. That is an actual additional burden on working-class Americans.”

Click to watch Senator Scott’s remarks at the press conference

On the results of the Democrats’ proposal … “I think about the fact that there are seven million Americans who are unbanked and may be a little suspicious of the government. This proposal will keep those good Americans from being able to engage and get involved in the financial systems of our country. I can’t think of anything more wrong-directed than this proposal. … For those Americans who are concerned that, somehow, the government is too big, too onerous, too burdensome, this only adds more fuel to that fire.”

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