The Epoch Times posted an article today about the ongoing negotiations among the Democrats about their massive spending bill. We have been hearing for months that Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will save us from this bill. It is possible that Senator Sinema will vote against it, but don’t bet money on Senator Manchin. Historically he only votes against the Democrats when it doesn’t matter.
The article reports:
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has come out against a revenue scheme proposed by his party that would have allowed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to gather information on the inflows and outflows of American citizens’ bank accounts.
The measure initially came to light as a part of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. In an attempt to head off concerns from moderates, Democratic leaders and rank-and-file lawmakers have desperately marketed the bill as being completely paid for with no substantial effect on the deficit or national debt.
…Speaking at a Tuesday meeting of the Economic Club in Washington, Manchin vehemently opposed the program.
Manchin agreed that the IRS should be somewhat strengthened. Under the reconciliation bill, insisted Manchin, “The IRS is going to be able to do the job that they’re supposed to be doing.”
But Manchin ruled that his party’s snooping scheme did not fall into the category of what the IRS should be doing. “[The IRS was] never able to go into bank accounts,” he noted.
Manchin related a conversation he’d had with President Joe Biden about the program: “I said ‘Mr. President, I don’t know who put this out or how it got screwed up but they said basically, ‘We’re gonna start looking at $600 transactions.’ Even if it’s $10,000, okay, that’s only $800 or $900 [of activity per month].”
Manchin said that he asked the president, “Do you understand how messed up that is? To think that Uncle Sam’s gonna be watching transactions?”
“I said ‘I don’t know how this happened, but this cannot happen. This is screwed up.’”
The article concludes:
The party is now considering a new tax on unrealized capital gains that would target only individuals with $1 billion or more of income per year or individuals with $100 million of income for three consecutive years. Manchin, Sinema, and other moderates have not yet given a nod of approval to this most recent measure.
BEWARE!!! Any tax levied on individuals with $1 billion or more of income will eventually be levied on individuals with $1 or more of income (because individuals with $1 billion or more of income can afford to hire the tax lawyers to avoid the tax) and the government will still want the revenue. Also taxing unrealized capital gains has never been done and is a really bad idea. What happens if those gains become losses? Do you get your tax money back? What a nightmare.