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State Treasurer Riley Moore today announced he has joined a coalition of 23 state Treasurers and financial officers to oppose President Joe Biden’s proposal to massively increase the amount of data on consumers’ personal bank accounts that is turned over to the federal government.

The Biden administration has proposed changing the level that triggers when a bank must report financial transactions to the Internal Revenue Service. Currently, any transaction of $10,000 or more must be reported to the IRS; the Biden administration and Congressional allies want to reduce that to just $600.

“This is going to be a massive burden on our independent and community banks, and is a significant invasion on consumers’ personal privacy,” Treasurer Moore said. “The Biden administration claims they need this to crack down on wealthy tax evaders, but in reality it will hit virtually every banking consumer, giving the federal government unprecedented access to individuals’ personal financial affairs.”

Treasurer Moore has joined a growing coalition of 23 state Treasurers and financial officers to oppose the proposal. The officials sent a letter to the administration expressing their opposition earlier this week.

In addition to concerns over the constitutionality of the proposal, along with its invasion on consumers’ personal privacy, the officials said the cost of designing and implementing a system of tracking and reporting all account inflows and outflows greater than $600 would impose a devastating cost on small community banks and credit unions.

“Many West Virginians living in small towns and rural communities across our state depend on their local community bank or credit union for home, auto and business loans and financial transactions,” Treasurer Moore said. “This new, costly reporting requirement will further drive bank consolidation, meaning consumers will have fewer options for their personal banking services.”

The letter also pointed out the current IRS reporting system is subject to data breaches and hackers, and that massively increasing the number of financial accounts which must be reported would expose millions of Americans to potential data breaches.

“If passed this will be one of the largest and most continuous data mining exercises against Americans in our history and will put a constant strain on customer privacy, data security and overall safety of the banking system,” the letter said.

Treasurer Moore also said this change would have a chilling effect on consumer confidence in our banking system.

“People must have confidence that their personal financial information remains safe, secure and private – and that confidence forms the backbone of our American banking system,” Treasurer Moore said. “This massive overreach by the Biden administration and their socialist allies will only lead more and more people to pull their money out of banks and find other ways to manage their assets. This proposal must be stopped.”

A copy of the letter can be read here: https://bit.ly/3kwOrkv.

The Treasury does not collect state taxes. Visit the The West Virginia State Tax Department for assistance.

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