Rubio, Crapo, Brady, Colleagues Introduce Bill to Protect Taxpayer Rights and Privacy

Press Release

Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX) in introducing the Tax Gap Reform and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Enforcement Act, which would protect taxpayers against Democrats' efforts to monitor Americans' bank accounts, place taxpayer finances in a surveillance dragnet, and provide massive, additional mandatory funding to IRS for an army of IRS agents.

"Many Americans are understandably concerned with the IRS's long history of overreach and ideological bias. Democrat proposals to dramatically increase IRS funding while engaging in new surveillance efforts pose a serious threat to taxpayers' rights and privacy," Rubio said. "This legislation takes steps to ensure that taxpayers are protected."

"In light of recent proposals to massively expand the IRS, with unprecedented amounts of mandatory funding, and the IRS's continued abuses of taxpayer rights and privacy, any additional IRS funding and monitoring of Americans' private finances must come with guardrails to help protect against abuses," Crapo said. "This legislation places important guardrails around IRS funding to protect taxpayers' rights and privacy."

"Before American taxpayers are subjected to 80,000 new IRS agents and surveillance of their private bank accounts, let's begin with an accurate, independent estimate of Treasury's so-called "tax gap,'" Brady said. "This bill also protects taxpayers from IRS targeting based on their political or religious beliefs and closes loopholes that risk leaking private taxpayer returns."

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