Uncle Sam Gets Set To Dig into Your Bank Account

Get ready, folks. Uncle Sam wants you. The White House and the Treasury announced gleefully Friday new tax enforcement plans that would double the number of IRS employees and require banks, payment services, and cryptocurrency exchanges to provide the government more information about account flows.Get it? Account flows. What does that mean? Well, here’s a guess. They want to dig into your bank account. Just like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act wants to dig into your cell phone. Just like Amazon, Google, and the rest already know everything about you.In my old age, I think I’m starting to become a libertarian. Everyone wants all my information all the time. Listen, I’ve been broadcasting for 25 years. I’m an open book. I have a paper trail a zillion miles long. I have television tapes that could circle the globe.However, I do not want the IRS in my bank account.That’s a step too far. First of all, my account isn’t that big, and second of all, I’m not hiding anything. And third of all, it has to be against the law or the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence — or something.Big brother is watching. I get that. I still don’t want them to pry. If this weren’t such a serious matter, it would be funny. They’re going to give theIRS another $80 billion to hire tens of thousands of agents to chase so-called rich people all around the country and the globe.It’ll never work. It’s been tried before. Don’t they know rich people live in yachts off the south of France. These IRS guys know how to swim? See, it’s sort of funny, but actually it’s serious and stupid. Tax avoidance would dry up if Uncle Sam would lower tax rates, and then we’d all be happy to broaden the tax base and get rid of various credits and deductions.Of course, the Bidens are going to raise taxes on virtually everything that moves. Companies, individuals, estates, capital gains, global minimum taxes, domestic minimum taxes. All this IRS stuff is a tacit admission that wealthy people will always be one step ahead of the IRS.I don’t care how many new agents. The only way for them to succeed is for them to hire people who can run the hundred yard dash in under ten seconds. They’re going to have to learn how to, so to speak, swim. The government is estimating the IRS chase will generate $700 billion in extra revenues.Would you like to bet? I’ve seen this movie before. Never happens. Now we learn that the Senate parliamentarian will probably rule the IRS tax grab out of bounds for budget reconciliation purposes. That would blow a mighty big hole in Mr. Biden’s infrastructure plan.So after $700 billion, which is these days real money, maybe that’ll end this whole infrastructure, Green New Deal, Great Society tax-hike fantasy produced by Mr. Biden and his progressive left friends. But one more quick thing.We had weekly jobless claims out this morning, and they were OK, falling 34,000 in the week ending May 15. Here, though, are a couple of major problems underneath the hood. The number of persons claiming unemployment benefits was 99,000 higher than mid-April. That is not good.Meanwhile, there are 13.8 million more persons claiming unemployment benefits than before the pandemic. This is so even while employment is down 8.2 million. That 8.2 million is a bad number, but 13.8 million collecting benefits is a really bad number and suggests that a big chunk of the workforce doesn’t want to work.Here’s another statistic — federal, and state unemployment benefits total $650 a week. However, in the leisure and hospitality sector, probably the worst hit area during the pandemic, average pay is $477. So you get $650 staying home, and $477 going to work.That tells me that overly generous federal policies are discouraging work and encouraging staying home. That is not good, either. Which brings me back to the opening point. This is no time to be raising taxes and hiring twice the number of IRS agents to chase capital out of the country.________Adapted from Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox News.

Uncle Sam Gets Set To Dig into Your Bank Account

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