Fighting the revival of a decades-old proposal that would drive much needed foreign capital out of the US, CF&P has aggressively laid out the case against the regulation to require reporting of non-resident alien deposit interest information to the IRS, an action which puts foreign tax collectors ahead of US law and economic interests.
Some of the objections and arguments raised by CF&P have included: 1) The refusal of regulators to do a cost-benefit analysis as required by Executive Order 12866, 2) a study by the Mercatus Center which estimated that a previous and more limited version of the regulation would result in a loss of $88 billion in foreign investment, meaning today’s proposal would result in even more catastrophic losses, 3) the fact that Congress has for more than 90 years explicitly made it a policy to attract this investment to the US by exempting these interest payments from both US taxation and reporting. and 4) the serious human rights concerns implicated by this potential reporting requirement.
The good news is that each of these points was raised multiple times at yesterday’s hearing on the issue, by both those testifying and by members of the committee. Clearly, our efforts are paying off. Are the IRS bureaucrats listening?
