Yellen on $600 IRS reporting requirement: 'There's a lot of tax fraud and cheating that's going on.'
The treasury secretary insists the rule is aimed at 'high-income individuals'
By Breck Dumas FOXBusiness
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen continues her pitch for the Biden administration's proposal that would require banks to report every customer's transaction of $600 or more to the IRS, insisting it is aimed at wealthy people while saying "there's a lot of tax fraud and cheating that's going on."
The White House estimates that the plan would raise more than $460 billion over the next decade for the federal government through ramped-up enforcement, and the administration is trying to sell the plan as a way to make money from rich folks – although all Americans would be subject to the rule.
In a clip aired Tuesday evening, CBS News' Norah O'Donnell asked Yellen regarding the plan, "Does this mean that the government is trying to peek into our pocketbooks if you want to look at $600 transactions?"
"Absolutely not," the treasury secretary replied, insisting, "I think this proposal has been seriously mischaracterized. The proposal involves no reporting of individual transactions of any individual."
Then Yellen went into how there are "individuals" the IRS does not receive enough information about.
"Look, the big picture is that we have a tax gap that over the next decade is estimated at $7 trillion," she continued. "Namely, a shortfall in the amount that the IRS is collecting due to a failure of individuals to report the income that they have earned."
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