Center for Freedom and Prosperity
For Immediate Release
Thursday, August 4, 2011
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
CF&P Praises U.S. Senators Behind
Effort to Prevent Implementation
of Destructive IRS Regulation
(Washington, D.C., Thursday, August 4, 2011) The Center for Freedom and Prosperity (CF&P) is praising three U.S. Senators for their leadership in introducing legislation that would prevent the IRS from implementing an unnecessary and destructive regulation. Introduced by Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), S. 1506 joins similar legislation recently introduced in the House (H.R. 2568) in seeking to prevent the IRS from requiring banks to report nonresident alien deposit interest information, despite the fact that such interest is not taxed under U.S. law.
“With the Senate now weighing in with legislation, it’s time for the bureaucrats at the IRS to get the message,” said CF&P President Andrew Quinlan. “They must remember that they serve the American people, not foreign tax collectors. We appreciate the hard work of Senators Marco Rubio, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, and look forward to working with them to remind the IRS bureaucrats that they should be promoting U.S. interests instead of undermining them.”
The regulation (REG-146097-09) puts the interests of foreign tax collectors ahead of both U.S. law and economic interests. A 2004 study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University looked at a similar regulation that only applied to fifteen countries and found that it would result in the loss of $88 billion in foreign investment. The current version of the proposed regulation would be much more destructive, as it would apply to deposits from citizens of any nation. Despite this evidence, the IRS has never performed a cost-benefit analysis of the regulation as required by Executive Order 12866 for any regulation that would have an annual effect of more than $100 million. The bureaucrats have blithely dismissed their legal obligation by claiming that their proposal is “not a significant regulatory action.”
The Center for Freedom and Prosperity has led the opposition against all forms of the interest reporting regulation since it was first proposed in the waning days of the Clinton administration. Organized by CF&P, members of the Coalition for Tax Competition have testified at three separate IRS hearings on the issue held over the years, including the most recent on May 18, 2011, and written numerous letters to Administration, Congressional and Treasury officials. Opposing the regulation is a top priority of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
For more information on the proposed regulation:
http://freedomandprosperity.org/issues/irs-information-sharing-regulation/
For additional comments:
Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, andy@freedomandprosperity.org
Brian Garst, Director of Gov’t Affairs, can be reached at bgarst@freedomandprosperity.org
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