WASHINGTON—CUNA has written to Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC), Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA) in support of their Prohibiting IRS Financial Surveillance Act.
The legislation is designed to prevent and codify opposition to the implementation of a Treasury proposal to require financial institutions to report additional account holder information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
“All financial institutions currently report to the IRS information related to actual taxable events for members and customers, interest earned, and mortgage interest paid, for example,” the letter reads. “The new proposal would result in banks and credit unions turning over to the IRS sensitive account details that in and of themselves do not constitute taxable events. This would leave the IRS with a massive trove of personal financial data that would be used in a manner that is not detailed in the proposal. This is risky and dangerous.”
Additional Concerns
CUNA said it is also concerned with the proposal’s effect on credit unions.
“Privacy and data security are paramount issues for credit unions and their members. Whether it is the massive data breach at the federal Office of Personnel Management in 2014 or the recent IRS leak of federal tax returns of many wealthy Americans, we remain doubtful that such data will remain safe and private from hackers and other malevolent individuals,” the trade group told the senators.
“Also, smaller credit unions would be especially burdened by this new proposal. From the increased costs of software upgrades to staff training, smaller institutions would perhaps need financial resources and additional time for implementation to meet the new requirements of the proposal,” the letter adds.
It’s Called Fresh for a Reason. And We Offer Home Delivery. For Free!
The biggest, best and freshest news reporting in credit unions remains free in ’23! Each morning CUToday.info delivers its daily Fresh Today news update offering the latest headlines and breaking news right to your email, with the easy-to-read headlines format allowing you to click on the stories that interest you most in order to learn more.
If you haven’t yet signed up for the new email solution on which CUToday.info has partnered with ResponseGenius, you can do so here. Signing up requires less than one minute of your time—and it’s free!
Please note that after signing up you may need to go to your Spam/Junk folder and mark the morning headlines email as safe. CUToday.info does not provide its list of readers and emails to outside parties, and we will not be contacting you to sell you an extended warranty or sending you any links so you may cash in on an inheritance you didn’t know was coming.
And did we mention it’s free?
Please note and/or make your IT department or email administrator aware the emails will be coming from the domains CUTodayinfo.com and CUTodayinfoReply.com