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Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen Advocates for Banks to Report All Transactions Over $600

Janet Yellen

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen defended Joe Biden’s administration’s proposal that banks report all transactions over $600. She also affirmed that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has the means to collect more information on taxpayers and bank accounts, including cash flows.

According to an interview reviewed by The New York Post, the secretary argued that the information gathered would help the Department of the Treasury to determine which wealthy high-income individuals may be hiding transactions.

“These would be helpful indicators of where it would make sense for auditing to occur,” Yellen added.

Republicans question Yellen

The measure has been criticized by different Republican voices. For example, Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis criticized the Treasury Secretary during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee hearing.

“Do you distrust the American people so much that you need to know when they bought a couch? Or a cow?” Lummis asked.

Republican Rep. Jefferson Van Drew, introduced HR 5475 last week, also known as the Banking Privacy Act of 2021. This was intended to stop Biden’s proposal.

“This useless proposal by the Administration is an invasion of Americans’ privacy rights and allows the government to have expanded access to individuals’ sensitive bank information,” Van Drew said.

The Wall Street Journal reviewed that under the proposal, banks would be required to turn over the aggregate inflow and outflow figures to the IRS annually and would cover bank accounts with at least $600 in transactions.

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