Supplemental Comments on Digital Asset Markets (Joint Trades)
SIFMA and joint associations provided additional comments to the President’s Working Group (PWG) on Digital Asset Markets Chair in support…
October 14, 2021
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
The Honorable Kevin McCarthy
Minority Leader
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
The Honorable Chuck Schumer
Majority Leader
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Minority Leader
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Re: Opposition to New Tax Information Reporting Proposal
Dear Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McCarthy and Minority Leader McConnell:
The undersigned associations representing a cross-section of financial and business interests write to express our strong opposition to the proposed new tax information reporting regime as described by the Department of Treasury, that would impact almost every American who has an account at a financial institution. The proposal will require providers of financial services to track and submit to the IRS information on the inflows and outflows of every account above a de minimis threshold of $600 during the year. Intended to help the IRS target wealthy tax dodgers, the unintended consequence is the overly broad proposal will directly impact almost every American and small business with an account at a financial institution.
Lawmakers must fully understand the breadth of taxpayers who would be receiving a new form from their financial institution – almost every American who has a bank or credit union account and has gross inflow and outflow of at least $600. While recent proposals suggest that increasing the de minimis threshold to $10,000 is less objectionable, this is a flawed assumption and will not significantly reduce the scale of this new IRS program.
As we mentioned in our previous letter, this proposal would create serious financial privacy concerns, increase tax preparation costs for individuals and small businesses, and create significant operational challenges for financial institutions. The recent reports highlight avenues that Congressional leaders are looking to “soften the edges” of the new regime, by exempting some payment processors, providing support to institutions to aid processing, or carving out certain types of flows all together (i.e. mortgage payments, etc.).
These new proposed exceptions only add significant operational complexity for financial institutions and will not materially reduce the tens of millions of American taxpayers who would be subjected to the new reporting regime. We continue to urge members to oppose any efforts to advance this ill-advised new reporting regime.