{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/rounds-crapo-colleagues-introduce-bill-to-protect-taxpayer-rights-and-privacy", "Rounds, Crapo, Colleagues Introduce Bill to Protect Taxpayer Rights and Privacy", "2021-09-15", "2021", "2021-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "Mike Rounds", "R000605", "www.rounds.senate.gov", "rounds", "https://www.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON\u2014U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) joined U.S. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Senate and U.S. House of Representatives colleagues to introduce the Tax Gap Reform and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Enforcement Act.\n\n\u201cI have heard from thousands of South Dakotans concerned about the proposed expansion of the IRS and the impacts it has on Americans\u2019 financial privacy\u2014I share their concerns,\u201d said Rounds. \u201cRather than seeking massive funding increases and unprecedented access to taxpayer bank accounts, the IRS should focus on improving its internal policies to close the tax gap. The Tax Gap Reform and IRS Enforcement Act establishes critical safeguards to help prevent IRS abuses and protect taxpayer privacy.\u201d\n\nBackground:\n\nUnder the guise of closing the \u201ctax gap,\u201d Democrats are seeking to increase IRS funding by a massive $80 billion over the next 10 years to expand \u201cenforcement and compliance activities\u201d at the IRS, and to create a \u201ccomprehensive financial account information reporting regime,\u201d under which gross inflows and outflows of taxpayers\u2019 financial accounts are reported by banks and other financial intermediaries to the IRS, effectively forcing them to act as IRS agents.\n\nIn addition to Rounds, other original Senate cosponsors include John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.).\n\nKey provisions of the Tax Gap Reform and IRS Enforcement Act:\n\nTax Gap Reform: Requires timely, annually-updated information on tax gap estimates in coordination with the Joint Committee on Taxation.\n\nTaxpayer Protection: Prevents the IRS from targeting Americans for their political and ideological beliefs, codifies President Biden\u2019s pledge to not increase audits of taxpayers making less than $400,000 per year, and prohibits the establishment of new bank reporting requirements.\n\nSmarter Enforcement: Requires the IRS to use existing data and tools to improve its corporate audit selection process and increase enforcement against high-income non-filers.\n\nCloses the Expertise Gap: Creates an IRS enforcement fellowship pilot program to assist with the agency\u2019s most complex audits and case selection decisions. Before hiring thousands of new agents, Congress should test the effectiveness of increasing expertise in a targeted way.\n\nThe legislation is supported by the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Tax Reform and the Center for a Free Economy.\n\n\u201cThis legislation is a strong alternative to recent proposals that would write an $80 billion check to the IRS with too little forethought,\u201d said Pete Sepp, President of the National Taxpayers Union. \u201cIf lawmakers move forward with an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) budget boost anyway, these reforms and more should be considered prerequisites for any major proposed increase in the IRS budget, and would both safeguard taxpayers\u2019 rights and support taxpayers\u2019 interest in an effective, modern, and agile IRS.\u201d\n\n\u201cDemocrats want to give the IRS $80 billion and hire 87,000 new agents so they can harass and audit taxpayers and create a new reporting regime that targets any bank account, Venmo account, or financial account exceeding $600 in gross inflows and outflows,\u201d said Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform. \u201cThis should be alarming given the IRS has a long history of failing to do its job and targeting taxpayers based on their political beliefs. The Tax Gap Reform and IRS Enforcement Act\u2026takes steps towards protecting taxpayers by implementing important safeguards against potential new IRS targeting and abuse.\u201d\n\n\u201cCongressional Democrats' answer to Americans' frustrations with the IRS is to hire more tax bureaucrats to audit them,\u201d said Ryan Ellis, President of the Center for a Free Economy. \u201cThis bill provides a welcome reform-based alternative. People are fed up with being told they are tax cheats by academics and bureaucrats who have never signed the front of a paycheck, and that they must become the subject of fishing expedition audits in service to a fabricated \u2018tax gap.\u2019 Reining in the tax gap estimation and audit process gives taxpayers a fair shake if the tax man comes knocking. Congress should focus on getting the IRS to answer phone calls and correspondence in a timely manner, not on new audits.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:17:01Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/rounds-crapo-colleagues-introduce-bill-to-protect-taxpayer-rights-and-privacy"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5507119242101908, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}