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El American’s Idiot of the Week award goes to the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, who defended Biden’s plan to require banks to provide information to the IRS on accounts that move more than $600 a year.
According to Yellen, this measure is designed to prevent tax fraud by “high-income individuals”. Yes, you read that right: $600 per year, to uncover tax fraud by so-called “billionaires.”
“We have a tax gap that over the next decade is estimated at $7 trillion, namely a shortfall in the amount that IRS is collecting due to a failure of individuals to report the income that they have earned. It tends to be among high-income individuals whose income is opaque,” said Janet Yellen.
One of two things: either many of us were billionaires without knowing it, or Janet Yellen’s argument that this is meant only for the very wealthy is the most idiotic excuse she could have come up with.
Because $600 a year is something we all spend. In fact, if inflation continues to rise, soon the banks will be reporting to the government what we had for breakfast.
Janet Yellen wants your money
The Biden proposal championed by Janet Yellen is worrisome as Orwellian, giving the IRS — which is like Big Brother — more and more tools to tax the long-suffering taxpayers. But more worrisome would be if we were to believe that this is to hunt down the rich evaders.
Wealthy individuals know how to evade without defrauding—and they can do so. With the tax voracity of governments and endless government spending, they cannot be blamed. This measure is clearly one more step to control the population. At best, to squeeze us with taxes and, at worst, for the government to start using our financial information for even more sinister, Draconian purposes.
In other words, they are not going to investigate — this is a made-up example — the drug-addicted children of powerful politicians, who are just as likely to rummage through carpets confusing Parmesan cheese with crack as they are to paint works of art that sell for huge sums of money.
No. They are going to investigate you, who have been looking for coins among the sofa cushions until you have gathered enough to buy a PlayStation.
How can we trust someone who wants us to believe that spying on the movement of $600 is to uncover billionaire evaders? As if she thinks we’re idiots.
Ignacio Manuel García Medina, Business Management teacher. Artist and lecturer specialized in Popular Culture for various platforms. Presenter of the program "Pop Libertario" for the Juan de Mariana Institute. Lives in the Canary Islands, Spain // Ignacio M. García Medina es profesor de Gestión de Empresas. Es miembro del Instituto Juan de Mariana y conferenciante especializado en Cultura Popular e ideas de la Libertad.
Social Networks: @ignaciomgm
👏👏👏bravo