[HN Gopher] US Treasury Department to monitor all US bank accoun...
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       US Treasury Department to monitor all US bank accounts over $600
       [pdf]
        
       Author : frays
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2021-09-11 09:08 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (home.treasury.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (home.treasury.gov)
        
       | greenyoda wrote:
       | First of all, this only seems to be a proposal for actions that
       | the Treasury could take in the future.
       | 
       | The part about monitoring bank accounts appears on page 88 (the
       | 94th page of the PDF document):
       | 
       | > _This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account
       | information reporting regime. Financial institutions would report
       | data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual
       | return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown
       | for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and
       | transfers to and from another account with the same owner. This
       | requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts
       | from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment
       | accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis
       | gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600._ ...
       | 
       | > _Similar reporting requirements would apply to crypto asset
       | exchanges and custodians. Separately, reporting requirements
       | would apply in cases in which taxpayers buy crypto assets from
       | one broker and then transfer the crypto assets to another broker,
       | and businesses that receive crypto assets in transactions with a
       | fair market value of more than $10,000 would have to report such
       | transactions._ ...
       | 
       | > _The proposal would be effective for tax years beginning after
       | December 31, 2022._
        
       | shostack wrote:
       | Does this in any fashion help pave the way to a more modern tax
       | filing system whereby the government tells you what you owe
       | without today's current labyrinthine filing process like other
       | countries have had?
        
         | hypothesis wrote:
         | That's not going to happen.
         | 
         | Lots of people are making a buck on disfunction and overly
         | complicated tax laws. Those same people know how to lobby
         | lawmakers. Who's lobbying for a simpler tax system?
        
         | actually_a_dog wrote:
         | No, because Intuit is still going to keep lobbying against it.
        
           | anm89 wrote:
           | Not sure why this is downvoted. This is factually accurate
           | and a major factor in why we haven't seen tax reforms.
        
       | PrinceRichard wrote:
       | Here's my proposal for taxes. Completely eliminate income tax and
       | every other form of currently existing tax for individuals and
       | businesses. Replace it with a small tax on all electronic
       | transfers, like 1-2%. Compliance is offloaded to private
       | institutions and the entire headache of preparing and filing
       | taxes is eliminated, along with the thousands of pages of laws
       | about and what is and isn't taxed and how much.
       | 
       | This should also result in a significant decrease in federal
       | revenue, which is an important part of the plan as well. I would
       | cut the federal budget about about 90%.
        
         | axiosgunnar wrote:
         | Wouldn't this lead to "off-chain" transactions where you keep
         | all your money in your account, but trade around IOU that are
         | not subject to that tax?
        
         | joshenders wrote:
         | Good luck constructing additional pylons
        
         | m0llusk wrote:
         | Most tax utopians rally around LVT. Transfer and transaction
         | taxes are regressive. Reducing the federal budget greatly would
         | cause a great economic contraction likely resulting in social
         | and political chaos.
        
           | refenestrator wrote:
           | Since you're boosting it here, do you have a link to any sort
           | of analysis where the math works out on a land value tax?
           | 
           | I totally get the philosophical attraction but I just do not
           | see how you pull trillions of dollars out of that without
           | some crazy outcomes.
        
           | u801e wrote:
           | Could the regression be mitigated by requiring a minimum
           | value of transactions to be tax free?
           | 
           | More affluent people spend more, so they will go beyond the
           | minimum.
        
         | imtringued wrote:
         | If you are going to cut the budget by 90% why not start with
         | how you are going to do that? Getting rid of the income tax is
         | largely inconsequential in comparison.
        
       | twirlock wrote:
       | These people have virtually no interest in collecting taxes in
       | comparison to their interest in creating criminals as a pretense
       | for monitoring everyone.
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-11 23:03 UTC)