Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President and colleagues, the Senator's proposal in effect would be a game-winning touchdown for wealthy tax cheats.

IRS Commissioner Rettig, a Republican appointee, came before the Finance Committee earlier this year and said the total amount of taxes evaded each year could be as high as $1 trillion. Cheating by those at the very top is one of the major causes of that huge tax gap. A big reason why is that the automatic reporting and strict rules that apply to the typical, hard-working taxpayer--nurses and firefighters, for example--they don't always apply to those at the top. That means the tax cheats are able to hide their cheating in the shadows.

The Senator's proposal would help them keep it that way. This proposal would make it extraordinarily difficult to collect the information necessary to crack down on the high-flying tax cheats.

The argument against information reporting is always the same, and it has been consistently wrong. Despite what opponents say, what President Biden and Democrats have proposed is focused on rooting out tax cheating at the top. It wouldn't apply to accounts with deposits and withdrawals under $10,000. And for most people, that is $10,000 on top of your paycheck. It is not about anybody's transactions. They wouldn't be reported, colleagues. It wouldn't create any new surveillance of digital currency. This information-reporting proposal is about reporting only two numbers: the total amount going into an account and the total amount going out of it. Social Security income does not count either.

So this idea--and I have listened to my friends--that somehow this is going to end Western civilization just doesn't hold up.

In fact, Commissioner Rettig, a Republican appointee, pointed out recently that this plan could actually reduce the odds of an audit for middle-class taxpayers, those folks that I was talking about, the nurses and the firefighters.

I am going to close with just a couple of other points. Most of my colleagues know that I am about as strong a privacy hawk as there is in the Senate. And I don't take a backseat to anybody when it comes to fighting for Americans' privacy, whether it is taxpayer data, communications, web traffic--you name it. And, colleagues, all of that work, all of that private work, is on the public record. It is a matter of public record. It isn't an atomic secret.

In those debates about privacy, it is also striking that it is most often Members of the other side attempting to stop reforms, for example, to government surveillance of phone records and emails and web browsing--web browsing. But when Democrats are working to crack down on ultrawealthy tax cheats, that is when, suddenly, we have got Republicans saying: Oh, my goodness; who is going to be sensitive to privacy?

I want to repeat, as I have on this floor again and again, I will talk to anybody on either side of the aisle with any philosophy about protecting taxpayer data. As the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which handles privacy policy, I want it understood that our committee--and I, particularly, given my record on privacy issues--we take privacy very seriously.

That is not what is on offer by the other side today. The bottom line is wealthy tax cheats are ripping off the American people to the tune of billions and billions of dollars per year. Tax cheats thrive when the reporting rules that apply to them are loose and murky. Democrats want to fix this broken approach and crack down on cheating at the top. The Senator's proposal would make that impossible, and it would hand-- colleagues, it would hand, the Senator's proposal--a big fourth-quarter victory to the tax cheats.

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