Strong Nations Need Tax Collection

Floor Speech

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, for most of my life, I have been a student of history. As a CPA, a tax lawyer, and a former head of the second largest tax agency in this country, I focused on the fact that if you look at empires, republics, and kingdoms, the ones that succeeded were those that were able to collect taxes. And when they were unable to collect taxes, they fell.

I have seen patriotic anarchists come to this floor. They want America to be strong, but they want our ability to enforce our financial laws to be weak.

There are those who say correctly that we should not defund the police because we have crime in the streets. But we also have to prevent crime in the suites.

Yet every time a billionaire successfully cheats on his taxes, a member of the Freedom Caucus earns his wings. There are two threats to our ability to collect taxes. Both of them seem to be supported by many on the Republican side.

The first of these is the underfunding of the IRS. For 3 days and 3 long nights, we heard each faction of the Republican Party say how they wanted procedures that would eventually lead to reducing our national debt, and then the first thing they bring to the floor is a bill that increases the national debt by $1.6 trillion according to six bipartisan Secretaries of the Treasury.

Frankly, I think that estimate is way too low because I have seen tax collection from every side; as a legislator, as a tax administrator and auditor, and as an adviser to private businesses.

When you conduct audits, you not only bring in money from that taxpayer, but you create an image in that social circle that tax returns need to be filled out accurately and even conservatively. That will no doubt lead to far more tax collection than the $1.6 trillion that has been estimated.

Keep in mind that working people really can't evade taxes. They get W-2s and 1099s. It is those with complicated tax returns and our large corporations that we are talking about.

Now, with the additional funding the Democrats have provided the IRS, we can finally put ``service'' back into Internal Revenue Service. Hopefully, they will answer the damn phones.

We need to see one IRS employee for every 2,000 tax returns that are filed. As you can see on this chart, that is what Ronald Reagan had back in 1988. Now, we are close to 3,500 tax returns for every IRS employee. That is untenable. That is why Donald Trump could take outrageous positions in his tax returns. He counted on light audits.

Ronald Reagan paid his taxes and staffed the IRS. Stand with Ronald Reagan and stand with adequate funding for the Internal Revenue Service.

There is a second threat to our ability to collect taxes--it is longer term--and that is the possible rise of cryptocurrency. When somebody tells you what they are, believe them. Cryptocurrency tells you what it is or aspires to be in its name. Cryptocurrency literally means hidden money.

Now, I am the only Member of this House to get a grade of F from the only organization dedicated to crypto advancement that rates Members of this House because I have been trying to ban crypto for over 5 years.

No one has helped me more in that effort than Sam Bankman-Fried, but some will view Sam Bankman-Fried as just one big snake in a crypto Garden of Eden. The fact is, crypto is a garden of snakes.

From the outside, it looks like it is just a token, an electronic pet rock, something to bet on, not because it has any value or use but because you might be able to sell it for even more to somebody else. But longer term investors in crypto are investing in it because they hope it becomes a currency.

How does crypto compete with the dollar, the existing U.S. currency? It is right there in the name. Cryptocurrency means hidden money, and the market for cryptocurrency is tax evaders trying to hide their assets from the IRS.

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