Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions - S 1979

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself and Mr. Baucus):

S. 1979. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to prevent the fraudulent avoidance of fuel taxes; to the Committee on Finance.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today we introduce a bill to fight tax fraud. I am not talking about just moving around a few numbers on a tax return. Today we will begin closing the loop holes that have created millions of gallon and billions of dollars of missing fuel and missing tax dollars. This problem not only robs the U.S. Treasury it also robs the American Taxpayer.

We rely on these tax dollars to fund not only the Highway Trust Fund, which is charged with constructing and maintaining our national transportation system, this also robs money from our Airport Trust Fund.

In light of investigations completed since September 11th, the safety and soundness of maintaining our nation's transportation infrastructure is now more than ever of the utmost importance. These issues are not just tax fraud-not only are we concerned with the tax loss, but where else is this money going-is it being used to fund terrorism? We need to know where all of this fuel is going. What makes us think that if we cannot find the fuel to collect the tax, that we could find the fuel to stop the terrorists acts. A missing barge could hold ninety tanker truck loads of fuel, that's about $500,000 in Federal and State excise taxes left uncollected, its also hundreds of thousands of gallons that we cannot account. That cannot happen, and this bill should help our enforcement officers close the loop holes and collect the tax that builds our highways.