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It's more than just a ticket. Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement that you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My name is Joshua Sheets.

I am your host. And today we're going to talk about some of the recent news regarding a proposal by President Biden in the United States, as well as a bill in the Senate submitted by Senator Elizabeth Warren advocating that all banking and financial institutions report to the federal government and to the IRS all of the monthly inflows and outflows of those accounts.

This is part of the overall press towards increasing, for the government trying to figure out how to increase the tax revenues and they're trying to go after, allegedly, go after tax evasion. We're going to begin in today's show with an overview of the actual news articles, the history, and the legislation.

And I'm going to share with you specifically where I think this is going to go, and perhaps more importantly, some of the things that I believe that you can do about this particular issue. As we begin, I have an important announcement, however, to let you know that for the first time in about six months, I am going to be offering paid consulting once again.

If you have been wanting to get my attention, if you have been wanting to reach out and speak to me for some aspect of financial consulting, business consulting in some way, I am now available to you. You can book a call by going to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/consult. And why you ask might you want to do that?

Well, if you would like to gain the perspective of an expert and experienced financial advisor who does not abuse your personal privacy, then this might be a good way to do it. As you'll hear me talk about in today's show, one of the things that is unfortunate but true about the financial industry is anybody who is involved in the financial industry in the United States is automatically an unpaid spy for the US federal government.

And that bothers me quite a bit. And so one of the things that I was quite happy about when I surrendered all of my insurance and securities licenses was to get out of that position. And so I don't tell people to buy or sell stocks, thus I do not need to have a securities license.

I don't make any specific forward-looking statements on investments, thus I'm not regulated by securities regulators. I don't sell anything except myself. And so if you would like to talk to somebody who is actually honest, straightforward, and who may be able to help you, we have a list of people who can help you.

And so if you would like to talk to them, you can do that by going to radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult. Let's begin with a newspaper article published yesterday in the Ocala Post. Headline of the article, "Biden Wants IRS to Snoop into Your Bank Account. Know When You Have $600 or More" by Rebecca Long.

Dateline here is September 13, 2021. I'm not sure why, in the last few days I'm seeing a lot more article and discussion about this issue. This is not strictly from September, but I am, and so I want to comment on this current event. Let's begin with the introduction to this article.

"Outraged citizens and banks alike want to know why President Joe Biden plans to allow the IRS to snoop into bank accounts, Venmo, PayPal, and crypto transactions, among other types of payment processing accounts. The White House said, 'This type of surveillance is needed to prevent tax evasion.' Biden plans to use any money that is confiscated during IRS audits to fund his proposed plan for the Democrats' $3.5 trillion budget plan.

If passed, banks would be required to report every deposit and withdrawal from an account to the IRS in order to target audits. The bill, known as Senate Bill 1788, the "Restoring the IRS Act of 2021," was proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren said the bill was intended to target the rich.

However, tax experts say the bill does nothing of the sort and leaves those in Congress exempt." Now I said this is not a new issue. Let's go back to April, April 29, 2021, article in the Wall Street Journal. Headline, "Biden Tax Plan Leans on Banks to Help Find Unreported Income.

The proposal would require banks to report annual account inflows and outflows to the Internal Revenue Service. Part of the funding for President Biden's $1.8 trillion American Families Plan hinges on a beefed-up reporting requirement for banks designed to identify unreported income. The proposal would require banks to report annual account inflows and outflows to the Internal Revenue Service.

The requirement would also extend to peer-to-peer payment services, such as Venmo, but wouldn't require individuals and businesses to report any additional information to the government, according to people familiar with the plan. Financial institutions already must report interest, dividend, and investment income, and the IRS can get bank information during audits." Providing the IRS this information will help improve audit selection so it can better target its enforcement activity on the most suspect evaders.

Avoiding unnecessary and costly audits of ordinary taxpayers," the Treasury Department said in a statement Wednesday. The Biden plan, which includes new spending on child care, education, and paid leave, relies on $700 billion in revenue the administration says would come from a significant expansion of the Internal Revenue Service. The information reporting expansion of the plan, combined with some other efforts, would yield about $460 billion of the $700 billion in additional tax collection under the Biden-IRS changes, the people said.

The plan would largely affect the bank accounts of business owners, placing financial institutions at the center of an effort to curb unreported or misreported business income. The IRS estimates that up to 55% of business income is unreported or misreported. Shocking that the IRS would estimate such a thing. Now let's go and additionally by way of background, that's enough news stories, let's go and read a little bit of text.

First I want to begin with the official fact sheet published at WhiteHouse.gov on April 28, 2021 about the American Families Plan, and then we will go to the text of the bill submitted by Senator Warren. Overall in the American Families Plan, today President Biden announced the American Families Plan, an investment in our kids, our families, and our economic future.

And the basic ideas are to expand government schools, add at least four years of free education, and so they want to expand government schooling. Basically in short, they want to add two years of government schooling for pre-kindergarten for three and four year olds, and then also add two years of government colleges for community college levels.

Basically make community colleges tuition free. And then there is a proposal for expanded child credits, education and preparation for teachers, yada yada yada, childcare credits, yada yada, paid leave, yada yada, nutrition, blah blah blah. Okay, now how do we pay for it? This is the appropriate section here. Tax reform that rewards work, not wealth.

The President's tax agenda will not only reverse, again reading from the government documents here, "The President's tax agenda will not only reverse the biggest 2017 tax law giveaways, but reform the tax code so that the wealthy have to play by the same rules as everyone else. It will ensure that high-income Americans pay the tax they owe under the law, ending the unfair system of enforcement that collects almost all taxes due on wages, while regularly collecting a smaller share of business and capital income.

The plan will also eliminate long-standing loopholes, including lower taxes on capital gains and dividends for the wealthy, that reward wealth over work. Importantly, these reforms will also rein in the ways that the tax code widens racial disparities in income and wealth. President Biden's plan uses the resulting revenue to rebuild the middle class, investing in education, and boosting wages.

It will also give tax relief to middle-class families, dramatically reducing child poverty and cutting the cost of child care in half for many families. The result of the President's individual tax reforms will be a tax code with fewer loopholes for the wealthy and more opportunity for low and middle-income Americans.

Altogether these tax reforms focused on the highest income Americans would raise about $1.5 trillion across the decade. In combination with the American Jobs Plan, which produces long-term deficit reduction through corporate tax reform, all of the investments would be fully paid for over the next 15 years. President Biden's plan will revitalize enforcement to make the wealthy pay what they owe.

We have a two-tiered system of tax administration in this country. Regular workers pay the taxes they owe on wages and salary, while some wealthy taxpayers aggressively plan to avoid the tax laws. Those with the highest incomes generate income in opaque categories where misreporting rates can reach 55%. A recent study found that the top 1% failed to report 20% of their income and failed to pay over $175 billion in taxes they owed.

But today the IRS does not even have the resources to fully investigate this evasion. As a result of budget cuts, audit rates on those making over $1 million per year fell by 80% between 2011 and 2018. Now, obviously, we are reading government propaganda. Government propaganda is something that we all know and appreciate.

But what is interesting to me is notice how, in this official document, which I have read verbatim prior to my commentary here, notice how the writers of this document pass back and forth regularly between tax avoidance and tax evasion. This bothers me. I point it out to you because it should bother you.

There is a dramatic difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. And what is quite frustrating to me is that the propagandists here, who are writing this particular bit of copy, this sales copy for their agenda, are ignoring that difference. And in that paragraph I just read, distinctly making false equivalencies between these practices.

Did you notice it? "Regular workers pay the taxes they owe on wages and salaries while some wealthy taxpayers aggressively plan to avoid the tax laws," dropping down tootin' sentences, "but today the IRS does not even have the resources to fully investigate this evasion." So just have your guard up whenever you're reading government propaganda.

The President's proposal would change the game by making sure the wealthiest Americans play by the same set of rules as all other Americans. It would require financial institutions to report information on account flows so that earnings from investments and business activity are subject to reporting more like wages already are.

It would also increase investment in the IRS while ensuring that the additional resources go toward enforcement against those with the highest incomes rather than Americans with actual income less than $400,000. Additional resources would focus on large corporations, businesses, and estates, and higher income individuals. Altogether, this plan would raise $700 billion over 10 years.

Increase the top tax rate on the wealthiest Americans to 39.6% One of the 2017 tax cuts clearest giveaways to the wealthy was cutting the top income tax rate from 39.6% to 37%, exclusively benefiting the wealthiest households, those in the top 1%. This rate cut alone gives a couple with $2 million in taxable an annual tax cut of more than $36,400.

The President's plan restores the top tax bracket to what it was before the 2017 law, returning the rate to 39.6%, applying only to those within the top 1%. End capital income tax breaks and other loopholes for the very top The President's tax reform will end one of the most unfair aspects of our tax system, that the tax rate the wealthy pay on capital gains and dividends is less than the tax rate that many middle class families pay on their wages.

Households making over $1 million, the top 0.3% of all households, will pay the same 39.6% rate on all their income, equalizing the rate paid on investment returns and wages. Moreover, the President would eliminate the loophole that allows the wealthiest Americans to entirely escape tax on their wealth by passing it down to heirs.

Today, our tax laws allow these accumulated gains to be passed down across generations untaxed, exacerbating inequality. The President's plan will close this loophole, ending the practice of stepping up the basis for gains in excess of $1 million ($2.5 million per couple when combined with existing real estate exemptions) and making sure the gains are taxed if the property is not donated to charity.

The reform will be designed with protections so that family-owned businesses and farms will not have to pay taxes when given to heirs who continue to run the business. Without these changes, billions in capital income would continue to escape taxation entirely. High-income workers and investors generally pay a 3.8% Medicare tax on their earnings, but the application is inconsistent across taxpayers due to holes in the law.

The President's tax reform would apply the taxes consistently to those making over $400,000, ensuring that all high-income Americans pay the same Medicare taxes. That is the gist of how the President of the United States proposes to increase revenues based upon that public statement on April 28th of 2021. Now let's read briefly for more details on the actual documents here that have a few more details.

To begin with, let's read an excerpt from the Department of the Treasury, a document published in May of 2021, called "General Explanations of the Administration's Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue Proposals," and we find the appropriate section here on page 88, wherein the Treasury Department proposes this, "Introduce comprehensive financial account reporting to improve tax compliance." Current law.

Business income is subject to limited information reporting. Current information reporting of gross receipts exists for only certain types of revenue, from Forms 1099-MISC, 1099-NESC, and 1099-K, and there is no information reporting on total deductible expenses. Reason for change. The tax gap for business income, outside of large corporations, from the most recently published Internal Revenue Service estimates, is $166 billion a year.

The scale of this revenue loss is driven primarily by the lack of comprehensive information reporting and the resulting difficulty identifying noncompliance outside of an audit. While the net misreporting percentage is only 5% for income subject to substantial information reporting, the net misreporting percentages for certain categories of business income exceeds 50%.

Requiring comprehensive information reporting on the inflows and outflows of financial accounts will increase the visibility of gross receipts and deductible expenses to the IRS. Increased visibility of business income will enhance the effectiveness of IRS enforcement measures and encourage voluntary compliance. Proposal This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime.

Financial institutions would report data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner. This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600.

Other accounts with characteristics similar to financial institution accounts will be covered under this information reporting regime. In particular, payment settlement entities would collect taxpayer identification numbers (TINs) and file a revised Form 1099-K expanded to all payee accounts subject to the same de minimis threshold, reporting not only gross receipts but also gross purchases, physical cash, as well as payments to and from foreign accounts, and transfer inflows and outflows.

Similar reporting requirements would apply to crypto asset exchanges and custodians. Separately, reporting requirements would apply in cases in which taxpayers buy crypto assets from one broker and then transfer the crypto assets to another broker, and businesses that receive crypto assets in transactions with a fair market value of more than $10,000 would have to report such transactions.

The Secretary would be given broad authority to issue regulations necessary to implement this proposal. The proposal would be effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2022. Now we go to the text of Senate Bill 1788, sponsored by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat from Massachusetts, called Restoring the IRS Act, introduced on May 24, 2021.

Now remember as we go to the actual bill for the details of this bill, remember that there are many thousands of bills submitted every year in both houses of Congress, and only some hundreds of them actually ever become law. And so there are frequently many crazy things written in bills, but it's useful to review the actual information.

So let's do this. Reading from the text of Senate Bill 1788, introduced in the Senate May 24, 2021, as I find it on congress.gov on September 14, 2021. If we go to, we go through the first section of hey we want to appropriate more money for the IRS, and then we go to the second section and read the actual text of the law.

Section 4, returns relating to certain business transactions. In general, the return requirement, subpart B of part 3 of subchapter A of chapter 61 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end the following new section. Section 6050Z, returns relating to account transactions. A, requirement of reporting, any covered financial institution shall make the information return described in subsection B at such time as the secretary may by regulations prescribe.

B, return. A return is described in this subsection if such return, 1, is in such form as the secretary may prescribe and 2, contains with respect to each account maintained by the covered financial institution. A, the name, address, and TIN, of course taxpayer identification number, of the person on whose behalf the account is maintained.

B, the monthly gross inflows and outflows with respect to such account. C, in the case of an account that is not related to a trade or business, the amount of such inflows and outflows that are related to 1, cash transactions, 2, foreign transactions and 3, transfers to related accounts and D, such other information as the secretary may require for tax administration and enforcement purposes.

My favorite is always D. So again by review it says that we're going to require financial institutions to create and submit a return that includes the name, address, and tax ID number of the person on whose behalf the account is maintained. The reason they use tax ID number is because that's either an EIN, employer identification number for business accounts or an SSN, social security number for individuals.

So A, the name, address, and TIN of the person on whose behalf the account is maintained. B, the monthly gross inflows and outflows with respect to such account. Now my English ability is not sufficient to know all of the information that would be absorbed or necessary or seen under the term the monthly gross inflows and outflows.

Generally I would understand monthly to mean each month on a calendar basis. The word gross usually means figures that are summed up and then inflows and outflows means how much money goes in and how much money comes out. So that could be a fairly general requirement. But what we get to in section D, and again I'm not an attorney, but there's no limitation that that necessarily be limited to just simply the total amount.

And so let's continue in part C. But part B just says the monthly gross inflows and outflows with respect to such an account. So the financial institution would send to the IRS, to the secretary, to the government, the amount of money that came into your financial account each month and the amount of money that went out of your financial account each month.

C, in the case of an account that is not related to a trade or business. So who are we talking about here? Well we're talking about an account that is not related to a trade or business. So that would be usually interpreted to be an individual person's account. So in the case of an account that is not related to a trade or business, the amount of such inflows and outflows that are related to three things.

Cash transactions, foreign transactions, and transfers to related accounts. So if you are not a trade or business, they're not asking for all of the details of how much your local supermarket takes in in cash transactions on a monthly basis. But if they're asking for your account, if you ever take cash to the bank and deposit it, then they're asking for how much is your account there.

Cash transactions, foreign transactions, how much money goes to foreign accounts, and then transfers to related accounts. So any transferring of money among your bank accounts. And D, such other information as the secretary may require for tax administration and enforcement purposes. And there are no further restricting statements. Covered financial institutions are then defined and there are some more details, but those are the important things to know.

Actually I guess the other thing that would be interesting in section five where it talks about reports to Congress. It says the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service after consultation with the comptroller general shall submit to Congress a report containing the following. One, an audit plan, a comprehensive description of a plan to shift more of the auditing and enforcement assets of the Internal Revenue Service towards high income, high wealth tax filers and corporations.

And two, recruit and retain auditors with the skills essential to audit high income individuals and B, the progress made in implementing such plan. Two, tax gap analysis in general, a comprehensive description of the tax gap, including the amount attributed to high income, high wealth tax filers and corporations and B, how other information reporting improvements could reduce the tax gap, including strengthened third party reporting on ownership of C corporations and ultimate ownership of partnerships.

Red flag. Tax gap, for the purposes of this paragraph, the term tax gap means with respect to any tax year, the difference between one, the amount of taxes owed by taxpayers under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 for such tax year and two, the amount of revenue paid voluntarily and timely by taxpayers under such code for such tax year.

And then number three, racial disparities analysis, a comprehensive analysis and description of whether there exists any racial disparities in the Internal Revenue Service's enforcement activities, including audits based on gross income, including a comprehensive description of any plans the Internal Revenue Service has to address any such disparities in the coming fiscal year.

So there we have increasing racial analysis by the IRS. Now, that's what you need to know. Perhaps it was a little bit longer than I intended, but sometimes when I read news stories, I don't know what's actually true. And so I always say, okay, well, let me go and find out what the actual text of the proposal says and do my best to get an accurate understanding of what is actually being proposed, what is hyperbole, what is not, what is spin, what is not.

I do my best. And so I try to share with you the details. Let's talk now about what happens with this legislation. Generally speaking, I believe that this is the future. I personally am persuaded that more transparency, more snooping, more reporting is the future. I don't see any reason why that will change.

Now let me explain how I get there so you can see whether or not you agree with me. I don't know whether this particular bill will become law or not. It probably doesn't matter one way or the other. If this particular bill becomes law or this particular bill does not become law, that won't change the general direction of the law.

The general direction of the law is we're going to require more reporting, we're going to require more disclosure, and we're going to require more snooping by financial institutions. And this is, as I see it, a confluence of many different factors. What are they? Number one, more and more individuals have made choices of their own volition to move their activities, their financial activities, from things that are easily kept anonymous to things that are easily tracked.

For example, the vast majority of us do virtually all of our financial transactions using credit cards and debit cards. Credit cards and debit cards automatically track everything that we do and they create a paper trail all along the way. But we didn't do it because we were forced to do it, we did it voluntarily.

We made that change. We stopped using cash because of the convenience. We were persuaded that it was far more convenient for us to swipe our American Express or to tap our Visa debit card or to scan our QR code on our phone or use the contact list payment on our watch.

We're convinced that it's far more convenient to do that than it is to carry physical bills. And there are good reasons why. You have, after all, cash back. I don't know, credit card transactions, sometimes about just 2% cash back as far as the amount of money that your credit card processor takes from the merchant for the transaction and then gives back to you to incentivize you to use his credit card.

You have consumer protections, you have certain fraud protections, you have certain extended return warranties, things like that. You have the ability of spending huge amounts of money when it's inconvenient to get your hands on physical cash. And so most of us have voluntarily chosen to move our spending onto credit and debit cards.

In addition, we have come to the point where we voluntarily have chosen to put ourselves in the position where we prefer to collect digital US token revenue rather than physical US token currency revenue. And so it's simpler. It's less accounting, it's easier to find fraud and theft from your employees if you have fewer cash transactions.

And so we've generally just made it simpler. Why does the merchant pay an exorbitant merchant processing fee, which then the credit card company is going to give 2% back instead of offering you a 2% straight up discount? Well, because it's simpler and more convenient for the merchant to have a long string of credit card transactions than it is to have a whole bunch of cash.

And the merchant knows that generally speaking, most of his customers will pay more and spend more when he is allowing them to pay with a credit card, which is why in the United States, generally, there's no such thing as minimum purchase requirements really anymore. You don't go into a store and it says you have to spend at least $10 to swipe a card and go in and buy something that's 37 cents in the vast majority of places for a card.

And so we have voluntarily made those choices. That's the first long term trend. And most of us aren't going to change. We're not going to go and change back. Most of us are not going to start carrying around wads of cash and spending physical currency. We're not. And so that is known.

This provides, first and foremost, an amazing paper trail that tax authorities can already use. For example, an IRS auditor already has the legal authority to subpoena all of your banking transactions, every single one of them, every one of your credit card transactions from every one of the financial institutions.

And every one of those financial institutions will turn that information over to the auditor in the audit process. And so there's already an appreciation of how much data there is there. And most people who cheat on their taxes will find themselves hoisted by their own petard of their transactions that they have systematically done.

And auditors are extremely skilled at finding out what's there. I've read several of the audit manuals that the IRS has published for its auditors on different industries. And the auditors are really, really good. They've figured out all the tricks. And they can usually find a way to identify tax evaders based upon the numbers of their industry.

The second big trend, however, is it has gotten easier to absorb, catalog, and analyze electronic records for most people. It's not difficult for your bank to automatically keep all of its records electronically. They're already doing it. It's not difficult for the taxing authorities to create a conduit for the bank to send that information there.

And so while at the moment the American Banking Association and the credit union associations, etc., are objecting to this, at the end of the day, they'll roll over. They have always rolled over. Right? Patriot Act, right? Remember what happened. Congress came out and established all kinds of new things.

Bankers roll over. Today, every single person working in financial services in any level in the United States, every single banker and bank employee, every single credit union employee, every single insurance agent, every single financial advisor, every single person that interacts with the financial system in any kind of licensed capacity is already an unpaid spy for the US federal government.

Each and every person, every single year, will take classes on how to spy for the federal government. You take an anti-money laundering course and you learn the red flags to look out for. And every single bit of that data is already there. And so why, conceptually, if bankers have already agreed to send every year 1099s, if employers have already agreed every year to send information on their W-2 reports for all of their employees and to send 1099s, they've already agreed, then what's a little bit more?

Who's actually going to stand up and say, "No, it's too much"? No one's going to stand up and do that. They've already agreed to it and they're already well trained for it. And there's no ability for anybody to do it. You know that if you don't have your annual anti-money laundering and know your customer class, then you know you're running afoul.

So they're already paying compliance officers to do the job to make sure, because they have to stop terrorism and money laundering and tax evasion. And so it's already being done every single year. And so what's a little bit more? They'll say they don't want to do it, but at the end of the day, if Congress passes it, the bankers will roll over and do it.

There's no expectation of anything else. And I remind you again, all of your information that you tell to any banker, all of your information that you tell to any financial advisor, any insurance agent, all of that is already subpoenable by someone who is suing you. So for example, let's say that you go to your friendly local banker or insurance agent and you made a couple million bucks in crypto and you say, "Hey, you know what?

Listen, I made a couple million bucks in crypto last year and I sold it. Man, it was great, but you ought to get involved in it." Then that financial advisor is going to walk away, he's going to open up his case notes and he's going to insert in there in his case notes when he walks away from the meeting, "Hey, so-and-so made a couple million bucks in crypto.

Is there an opportunity here?" And then of course, if you're being audited or if you're in court or somebody is searching for information, they'll get a subpoena. They'll come to the financial advisor's office and they'll subpoena the tax records, all of the case notes. And your financial advisor will turn over all of his case notes to the particular investigator and all of that will become a matter of the court record available to the attorneys and the auditors, etc.

And so that's the system that's already done. It's a system based upon compliance. And so there's only a slight additional measure to go with a partway measure like this. Now the headlines might temporarily make some people upset. Headlines, here's the Daily Mail article from a few days ago. "Why are they snooping on an average Joe over a $600 payment?

Fury as Biden tries to let IRS snoop on your bank accounts, Venmo, PayPal, and crypto plan deals and plan that could "violate the Fourth Amendment." We'll come to the Fourth Amendment issue in a moment. "The proposal would require banks to report gross inflows and outflows to the IRS from an account." Here is the Western Journal.

"Your bank account may not be safe. Biden's budget bill could allow IRS to snoop on every transaction you make." So you have a little bit of right-wing resistance, a little bit from the conservative Republicans are going to say, "Biden can't do this. This isn't right," etc. But they will change their tune as soon as circumstances change.

At the moment, it's convenient to oppose this because Republicans and conservatives don't have power. But pretty soon it will be convenient for them to support this because we got to go after the drug dealers, we got to go after the terrorists, and they'll just flip. It's how it works in everything.

And so if you don't see that the trend is towards more transaction, more transparency all along the way. Now what could reverse the trend? Well, to reverse the trend would be if somebody was making a clear and principled argument in contradiction of it. Let me use by way of example.

I personally believe that probably within a decade or so there will be free government schools available for anybody who wants a college degree all the way up through the bachelor's level. I think that that will be very probable. Maybe it's a decade, maybe it's 15 years, maybe it's 20 years, but I think that within the coming time, within a reasonable time, a decade or two, there will be government schools available for anybody who wants to go to one to get a college degree.

Why do I think that? Well, the reason I think that is we already have government schools from K through 12. That's already widely accepted by the population and there's nobody arguing against that, nobody prominent. I'm a weird weirdo. I argue against it, but almost nobody even in my own listening audience agrees with me.

People say, "Okay, that's nice." And they go ahead and they say, "Well, when I'm buying a house, I want to make sure that my child is in an A-rated government school district." Okay, fine, fair enough. And I'm not saying you can never enroll your child in a government school.

You make the decisions that's best for your family and for some families maybe the government school is the best solution. But the point is that the population of the United States has broadly accepted that K through 12 is where it should be and there should be government schools available for K through 12.

Now, President Biden here is proposing that it's K through 12 plus four. He's proposing that there be government pre-kindergarten schools available for third and fourth grade, or sorry, for three and four year olds, pre-k, three and four year olds. And also that there be government colleges available for what I call 13th and 14th grade.

Now, I expect that proposal at some point to become law. Why? Well, can you tell me why anybody who accepts government K through 12 should fundamentally resist government pre-k or government 13 and 14? Why? Some people will say, "Well, it's too young, right? Maybe three and four. I don't want the government indoctrinating my three and four year old." But then they send their five and six and seven and eight and nine year olds to the government indoctrination centers anyway.

So what's the difference? A little bit younger? Hey, if it's a little bit younger, then you can go out and get a job and you can make a little bit more money and then you have more money in your 401k and you'll be able to retire faster. What about 13th and 14th grade?

Well, if you support government schools through 12th grade, then why wouldn't you, by extension, support government to 13th and 14th? So you see some people saying, "Well, no, you should pay for college." But there's no fundamental philosophical distinction. Why should you pay for college and not pay for high school?

Why? Especially in a world in which, by all accounts, the college degree is necessary to live in a stable employment environment. And so I think there are good arguments against government schooling. But in order for you to have a strong argument, consistency is necessary. So I oppose government colleges for the same reason I oppose government high schools and government primary schools for the same reason I oppose government preschools.

Not saying that as some abject desire to make myself seem virtuous, just saying that to me it makes sense. Why I oppose it, it's the same reason I would vote if I were elected emperor of the world. I would disband the Department of Education. I would eliminate all government schools and allow local communities if they wanted it, fine, but I would eliminate government schools.

But the vast majority of people can't conceive of the world in which that would be possible. So now let's go to data reporting. I hope my argument was clear. By analogy, if you don't have a reason to oppose the government schools that exist, then you're going to have a very hard time fighting against the expansion of the government school system to 3 and 4 year olds and to 13th and 14th grade.

I see the same principle here. Do you oppose sending out 1099s? Do you oppose filling out W-2 forms for your workers? Do you oppose the automatic reporting that is already there? Do you stand up and would you support a bill that says we should eliminate the 1099-K and the 1099-DIV and the 1099-MISC that all of these institutions already have to give?

Do we oppose the KYC laws? Do we oppose the money laundering laws? Well, if you don't oppose those things, then why wouldn't you want the government to be able to have just a little bit more information? Because with a little bit more information, the IRS would be able to do, no doubt, a better job.

To me it seems a fairly straightforward thing. Now you won't see that, right? The politicians will, depending on whether it's convenient, will say, "Yes, we need to tax the rich, and so we need to make sure that we have more reporting requirements so we can tax the rich, or we need to not do this because it's just too much for ordinary Americans." But it's an illusion.

It's an illusion. And so the arc of history has bent massively in the direction of automatic forced disclosure and reporting. There are enough examples of this in so many parts of the world that the people who advocate for this position don't have to be perceived as weirdos and freaks in the modern world.

Let me give you some international perspective. There are several countries in the world that automatically disclose all bank account—sorry, all bank return—tax return information for all citizens. Automatically. Many countries—I find this frequently in Latin America. Where was the latest place? Costa Rica. I was in Costa Rica recently and I was talking to several Costa Rican businessmen.

And what the Costa Rican government has done—and this is common in Latin America—is you have to submit your taxpayer ID number at the point of sale. So if you go to the store—in many places in Latin America—you go to the grocery store. The first thing they'll do at the grocery store is ask you for what is your taxpayer ID number.

Usually it's your Cedula number. Cedula is a national ID card that most Latin American countries have. In most Latin American countries you're required to have on you an identification card that is a government-issued from the national government—a government-issued national identification card that has all of your information. You're required to have it on you at all times and you're required to produce that to any government agent who asks it for you.

Which is an interesting also sideline analysis we can do in talking about that same trend, the same kind of trend arc of inevitability. If you look at something like the Real ID Act in the United States, it's a backdoor national identification card because the front door method was found to be distasteful to US Americans, but the backdoor method was.

And especially in a time of crisis, too much terrorism, too much drug dealing, too much money laundering, we need national ID, we need Real ID, and so the Real ID Act was passed and it'll fulfill its final implementation here in 2023. Back to the Cedula. So usually you go up and the first thing that the clerk asks you is for your Cedula number.

Now, you don't always have to give the clerk your ID number. You don't always have to. You can still in many places simply walk into the grocery store, walk into the hardware store, buy something, pay using physical currency for that transaction, walk out. But they incentivize and require the collection of that data using a couple different methods.

In some countries, they will give you a tax rebate based upon your giving them that number. So let's say you go to a restaurant, right? Restaurants are an area in which many restaurateurs engage in tax evasion. They under-report their earnings. So the government may say, "Listen, if you'll report how much money you spend at restaurants to us, then we will incentivize you.

We'll give you a 40% rebate on your taxes for that amount that you spent on restaurants." And the way it works is you give your taxpayer ID number, the person, the restaurateur has to give you a receipt, and whether you paid with cash or whether you paid with a card, that information is now automatically entered into a database, which goes immediately to the taxing authorities.

And so the government has incentivized the citizens to help the government track the revenue for each of the restaurants by giving the citizens a tax rebate based upon them reporting the amount of the spending. The other way that has happened is with the system in Costa Rica that has recently changed, is that if you want to take a tax deduction for any of your expenses, you have to register your taxpayer ID at the time of purchase.

So you might be able to very well take a deduction on the amount of money that you're spending on supplies, right, at a local supply store for your business. But if you're going to do that, you have to register your taxpayer number, and they will not allow any deductions on your business tax return that aren't accompanied by an electronic receipt registered in the government database.

And so in this way, you know, okay, I'm going to spend $500 on supplies. I want to deduct that so it offsets my $500 of gross income. Well, the way it's done is that you have to register it. And so if it's not registered, it's just a random payment sent out to somebody, even if you have a receipt, even if it's all totally well and above board, it doesn't count.

And so that's increasing collection. And so the trend on a global basis is towards more collection, more data collection, more transparency on all of your transactions. So I don't see any reason why that would change. Think about it for a moment. Can you suggest to me any reason why that trend would change?

Outside of a few people in kind of committed ideological camps where they believe in the right to privacy or they're concerned about government overreach or they're concerned about setting up databases, there's just not, I don't see any meaningful resistance to that. So I expect it to continue. I'm sad about it.

I wish it weren't the case. Count me among those who try their very best to explain why it's a danger, why it's a danger when governments in the 20th century killed 260 million of their own citizens, why it's kind of dangerous to make sure that you give the government all of the data that you need for them to turn around and decide that you're an undesirable 10 years from now, 20 years from now when the other person comes into power.

But most people don't buy those, right? They don't believe you have a right to privacy. Your right to your medical privacy ends when you come into my establishment. Scan your QR code. Your right to financial privacy ends when you make money in my country. And they're not willing to be philosophically consistent.

So I don't see any reason why it would change. Maybe your answer might be, well what about the Constitution? What about legal restrictions? Let's talk about that for a moment because several of the news stories that I quoted from raise this concern. And it is a worthwhile concern. For example, going back to the very first article that I quoted from, "Banking officials are against" from the Ocala Post, "Banking officials are against the plan and say it violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects U.S.

citizens from search and seizure without probable cause." I personally think that all of this data collection is indeed a violation of, if not the letter of the law, the spirit of the Fourth and Fifth Amendment. However, while I'm not a lawyer who has read every case law, basically, to my knowledge, all tax defenses, including the Fourth and, or citing the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, have failed.

In the year, over the years, since the income tax was passed, found unconstitutional, and then the Constitution was amended with the Sixteenth Amendment, so thus it was found constitutional, many people who didn't feel that it was just, that the U.S. government could come and steal their money willy-nilly, have tried various defenses.

And some of what I think, from a layman's perspective, are probably good, legally sound defenses, have included arguments from the Fourth and Fifth Amendment. Tax information is unique in the world of personal information. In virtually any aspect of American criminal and civil law, you don't have to extend information.

Let's talk about criminal law, where it's the clearest, right? In criminal law, you are innocent of anything of which is alleged against you until you are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And there is no requirement that you have to open your mouth and testify against yourself and give your accusers information that could be used to incriminate you.

You are not required to give up information by personal testimony. You may, in some cases, have your record seized, right? Somebody can go before the judge and can say, "I want to get a warrant," and with that warrant, they can search your premises. With that warrant, they can get your bank account information.

With that warrant, they can get your call information, etc. And that's an important tool that law enforcement has. But in order to do that, they have to be able to present evidence to get that warrant, and then that evidence can later be used in court. But you're never required to submit the evidence without a warrant, except in tax law.

In tax law, what the IRS requires is that every single year you sit down and you tell them all the information about all the money that you've earned or received or acquired from any form whatsoever and in any amount whatsoever. And then if you want to ask to not have to pay tax on all of the money that you received, then you can give them additional information claiming that you had certain business expenses, certain deductions, etc.

And then you write a check and send them the amount of money that they asked for. If they disagree with you, you have to keep all the records to prove your case. And if the auditor comes and sits down with you and you can't prove every single dollar amount that you put on that form, they will disallow it and you'll be required to pay more tax money.

If the IRS can provide evidence that you have committed fraud, that you've knowingly lied or committed fraud in any of the information on your return, you might even be tossed into prison. That's radically different than the whole tone of the legal structure under which virtually every aspect of the American justice system works.

But here's what's important. Every one of those defenses is lost in court, to my knowledge. No matter how vigorously tax protesters have asserted their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, they've lost. The judge tosses them in prison. And so I don't know whether there's something legally, technically different about this than not.

But if already nobody thinks it's a Fourth Amendment violation for your employer to send a W-2 every year to the government saying how much they've paid you and how much they've deducted, if it's already not a legal violation for your banker to send a 1099 every year saying how much you have earned in interest and dividends, then why would it be a legal violation of the Fourth Amendment to have all the information disclosed on your gross inflows and outflows?

What's the difference? I would hope there's some difference, but I don't see it. I'm not aware of it. So I don't see any real reasonable legal argument here as well. What you have to know is this. The government is desperately broke. Desperately, desperately broke. Remember that it was March of 2019 when I did episodes 628 and 629 of the podcast called "Federal Debt," the ticking bomb that no one is willing to defuse.

And I talked about what the then situation of the U.S. federal government and U.S. federal finances was at that time. And I explained how dire it is if nothing changed. And I explained that in the next few years the changes you would have to see in order for there to be any hope of ever stopping the amount of the growth of the debt, there would have to be absolutely dramatically transformative changes in federal tax revenues, in spending, etc.

To the point that no politician could advocate for those things and get elected, and no politician who advocated for those after election would ever win re-election. So what have we seen over the last two and a half years? Well, shockingly, we have indeed seen dramatic change. Unfortunately, it was dramatically in the wrong direction.

Instead of dramatic change of massively increased tax rates and massive decreases in government spending, we've seen the exact opposite. We've seen massive increases in government spending due to the effects of the pandemic, massive more borrowing, and stable tax revenues with very modest increases. So what does that mean? Well remember, a government has four basic sources of revenue.

Three of them are important, the fourth I just, I add because it does matter. The first form of revenue is taxation. Taxation, a government collects revenue through taxation. Second form of revenue is through borrowing. Third form of revenue is through user fees. Fourth form of revenue is inflation. Those are the four forms of government revenue.

And so in order to balance a budget, you have to increase revenue and/or you have to decrease expenses. Well, decreasing expenses is politically impossible in the United States. Three quarters of government expenditures involve Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and military spending. The four sacrosanct areas of federal spending that nobody is willing to touch.

So we fight about the remaining quarter of the budget. Meanwhile, the 75% continues. Oh, sorry, I forgot interest on the debt. So if you're not going to decrease expenses, you have to increase revenue. Well, first way you increase revenue is by increasing taxation. How do you do that? Well, you can change the rates which you see proposed.

You can change the tax base, right, the amounts at which things are applied. You can close loopholes, quote unquote. Hey, I shouldn't use that word even in talking about even using their language. You can change what the government calls tax expenditures, meaning, hey, we're not taxing people on the inside buildup of their 401k funds.

We should do that because we could collect a lot more tax revenue. Or we're not taxing people on the inside buildup of their cash value life insurance. We should do that because we're collecting, we could collect more tax money. Or we're not taxing people on the capital gains from the sale of their property.

We should do that so we could start collecting tax revenue. Or we're not taxing people on the amount of money that they're spending for health insurance. We should do that because then we can collect revenue. Those are called tax expenditures. So you heard the Biden proposal reference a couple of those.

So you can raise taxes or you can increase compliance, which is what they're trying to do. Okay, if we spent more money on IRS auditors, then maybe we can force people to pay us more money or we can force people out of the shadows and collect more money. And the US government has been doing that steadily.

The trend is a 15 year trend. The US government destroyed international bank privacy. The US government forced the entire world to do its bidding. And all the bankers around the world that want to do business with Americans now have to report all that. So what's the difference between forcing the Americans, American bankers to report the same amount of information that international bankers have to report?

It's going to happen. Okay, then back to borrowing, right? But the US government is borrowing lots and lots of money. And then inflation, inflation is kicking up. So what can you do about it? I would say first, the first thing that you can do about it is number one, make sure that you are in compliance with the law.

Don't mess around with people who will put you in jail. The first rule of freedom is stay out of jail. Don't mess around with people who put you in jail. Stay compliant with the law. Stay compliant with the law, get good at documenting everything that you're doing, and you can win your tax cases.

Tax court may not be fair, but you do argue it based upon the rules. And so if you will follow the rules, things are good. That's thing number one, stay compliant. Now, could things change dramatically 10 years from now? Absolutely. Everything can change, but stay compliant. If you don't like the rules, don't try to fight them.

Don't spend the rest of your life in prison. Just leave, go somewhere else. Okay, which is what I am fundamentally saying. Stay compliant. Now, while you're staying compliant, there's no fundamental reason why you can't use the tools that are available to you in order for you to maintain privacy.

For example, it is 100% legal for you to accept physical paper US tokens as payment for your services. And there is zero requirement that you take that physical paper and deposit it into a bank account. So if you're worried about this particular set of reporting, you can simply collect those US dollar tokens in the form of paper currency and then keep it.

And then you can go and you can spend it. And in the United States, those activities are not tracked and you're breaking no law. You can record the amount that you're receiving in income, and you can keep the receipts for the amount that you're spending in expenses. As long as you report that income and then appropriately deduct those expenses, you're good to go.

You can maintain privacy over your affairs by simply using those paper US dollar tokens. That's the thing you can do. There are other tools that you can use as well. There are other tools of financial privacy that you can use. And so if you desire to have privacy over your affairs, start doing that and encourage that.

For years, I've engaged in and encouraged this as my mini protest. Now, this is falling out of favor, but in the United States, there's more of a cash culture than in many other countries in the world. But I systematically will refuse to spend credit transactions, especially in the United States.

You go into a company, a business that has decided they won't accept physical currency. I understand why they do it. I think it makes sense for them to do it in most cases, but I'll just simply choose to shop at a different place. And if it's important to you, do that.

It's important to be true to what you believe in. So if you want to avoid a business that engages in, you know, says, "Here, show us your QR code to shop here," avoid them and go somewhere else, someone that does something different. And so I systematically do that myself, and I encourage you to do it if you want to.

You're breaking no law. And if you don't vigorously use the freedoms that you have, expect to lose them. All freedoms should be defended, right? Why do I refuse to talk to the police no matter what, even though I've done nothing wrong and my testimony could possibly help them? Well, I'm not going to talk to the police because that's my right.

And when I see that those rights are being abused, I'm going to systematically refuse to ever talk to the police and teach others to do that because that will make a difference. It doesn't matter whether I'm guilty of anything or not. Why do I always use encryption on everything?

Well, why would I not always use encryption? It's my right to privacy. You have no right to invade my personal privacy to try to find out what's in my email. The National Security Agency has no right whatsoever to invade my privacy to try to find out what's in my email.

It doesn't matter that there is nothing incriminating. It doesn't matter that it's innocuous and mundane. I'm going to stand up as a form of protest and I'm going to encrypt all communications. I'm going to use the very best ways to do that. I get really nervous about those 260 million people and I don't want to see another millions of people murdered.

That wasn't my watch. This is my watch. And so I want to do my best to stand up for it. So same thing for you. Financial privacy. Engage in financial privacy for the principle of the thing and to defend your right to freedom. What else can you do practically speaking?

I think you can get involved in to the extent that you're able to encourage the development of new financial systems. The financial landscape in the United States is absolutely disgusting. The US government generates most of its power in the world from the power of the US dollar which is used in an absolutely massive economy.

The US government then employs the world's biggest army to enforce and support the interests of US businesses systematically, thus keeping a massive amount of power to the US dollar. That system is not likely to change quickly. Because of the power and the authority that has been given to agencies like the IRS, government agents have just tremendous power over your affairs.

So what can you do? Well you can encourage use of other systems. I am excited, massively excited about the potential for things to change using cryptocurrencies and using the decentralized finance space. It is a frontier market at the moment. But for the first time that I've ever been able to believe there actually could be a change and transition to a new system.

To new systems completely. Today you can actually live without reference to the US dollar. It's not easy. I don't do it yet. But you can actually do it. It is actually possible. You can take a debit card with you that spends directly off of a bitcoin wallet. It's amazing.

It's easy, it's fast, it's cheap. No problem at all. And I'm encouraged that all the new solutions that I think are being developed to help people. And I think it's absolutely exciting. Now that doesn't necessarily mean you have more privacy. Some solutions tend towards privacy, some don't. But what you can do is you can encourage those things that do give privacy if you want more privacy in your affairs.

And you can work with those who respect your personal right to privacy. Who don't invade your privacy and abuse you. One of the things that I am convinced of is that today change is possible faster than ever before. Traditionally throughout history when you look at the world you look around and you say you know what things can't change quickly.

They really can't. It's going to take decades and decades and the powers that be are the powers that are going to be the powers that be for the future. But today the rate of change, the ability for one man or one idea or one political slogan or one principle or one anything to spread around the world has never been faster.

Which means that change is happening at a faster pace than ever before. And so the world is compounding. Things are compounding systematically. Which means that there are more opportunities than ever before. And things can change faster than ever before. It's very possible, this is 2021, it's very possible that in 2031 you and I are living under a very different financial system.

It's very possible. Things can change so much faster. So hopefully that change is in a positive direction. Not all of it will be. But hopefully if you'll be thoughtful and you'll get involved and just using the things that serve you, that change can be in a positive direction. Trying to keep myself to a not excessively long show here with example after example and stay on point.

The point is use new approaches. The fourth and final thing that you can do is you can always choose, as my friend Andrew Henderson says, to go where you're treated best. You are not stuck in the United States of America. You are not stuck banking in the United States of America.

You are not stuck investing in the United States of America. You can go where you're treated best. If you want to live in the United States of America, there's no requirement that you bank in the United States of America. And in today's world, it's far easier than it's ever been to bank offshore.

You should consider it. You will gain more privacy. Even with FATCA, even with that, you'll gain more privacy. I'm going to give you a very simple example. As I travel the world, I have a number of credit cards, number of business cards, debit cards from a number of different places, number of different institutions, number of different countries.

So I travel the world. When I'm outside of the United States, I will frequently use my US credit cards for all of my transactions. Now I'm aware of the fact that I don't have meaningful personal privacy with that. I'm aware of the fact that all of my data is being scraped by the US credit card companies and being sold.

I'm aware of the fact that I'm being profiled based upon that data. I'm aware of the fact that I'm generating records on all of those transactions that the US government can take and do and they can subpoena and get all that stuff. I'm aware of the fact that there's no real privacy there.

I'm not involved in anything nefarious. I'm quite boring and conventional in my actual life. And so I don't have anything in there that I don't mind being published on the front page of the New York Times. No big deal. If you want to see how much money I spend on meat at the grocery store, that's fine.

I won't be embarrassed by the fact that there's more meat on my checkout slip than vegetables. But what I gain is I do gain a substantial amount of privacy while traveling. So for example, when I am in Mexico or Costa Rica, Costa Rica with their system of taxpayer ID number.

When I'm in Costa Rica and I swipe my US credit card, I just say no thank you when they ask me for a taxpayer ID number. If they press, I say I'm a tourist. I'm just passing through. And then I swipe my card. In order for the Costa Rican government to gain access to all of my affairs, they would have to create some kind of cross-border agreement and go to the US government and convince the US government why they need access to all of my financial affairs.

Why would they do that? I'm not involved in anything. Now if I were a terrorist or something, then certainly they would be able to eventually do that. But for most normal people who just want a little privacy, it's great. Now let's go one step farther. Let's say that I bank in a country where I don't live.

Let's say that I use my Canadian bank account or my Canadian credit card. You can call up American Express. If you arrange for yourself an address in Canada, you can call up American Express. You can do a credit transfer from the United States to Canada. You can say, "Hey, can I have a Canadian American Express?" Your Canadian American Express will swipe just as well in Panama as anywhere else.

And now you create a third layer. And so you can use the institutions and create for yourself more simple basic levels of privacy than ever before. Now it doesn't work everywhere. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying this is the tool. This is what's available to us. And so if you care about privacy, just start engaging in things that are more consistently private and use those tools.

Use cash when you can. Use alternative currencies when you can. And use internationalization when you can. Those tools work. That's what we've got. And then teach and advocate for the principles that you care about when you can. There's no question I try to not make my show hyperpolitical, but I do try to be clear like why do I stand for privacy?

I stand for financial privacy, the same reason I stand for medical privacy, the same reason I stand for communications privacy. It's your right as a human being to maintain your own affairs private. I have no right to come and pry into your affairs. I have no right to come and point a gun in your face and say, "You have to tell me about something that's wrong." So, I have no right to pry into your affairs.

Thus, I'm going to protect you. And then I appreciate the same courtesy and response. That's it for today. In summary, now you know more about what is being proposed. I expect in the fullness of time these proposals to pass, these kinds of proposals to pass. I see no reason why they won't.

There may be political activism and political resistance at the moment, which would be great. I'm happy for it. Will that political resistance last? Perhaps not, in my opinion. But it doesn't really matter. The trend is in that direction. I don't see any reason to expect that trend to change.

But what you can do is you can take steps now that will be practical to protect your personal privacy. You don't have to sit and take it. You may choose that you're willing to, but you don't have to. For me, that brings me a tremendous amount of peace and joy.

Thank you so much for listening to today's show. I would remind you that, again, I am taking consulting clients. If you'd like to speak to me personally in a private capacity, go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult. I previously did focus more on the privacy aspects of my consulting work, but I found that most of my clients just didn't really care, and that's totally fine.

I won't give you any advice for anything that's illegal, etc. But if you do care about privacy, just use a private form of payment. If you need to establish something privately, I do have clients from time to time who will speak to me. I take all my calls on Zoom because it works and it's effective, but from time to time, I'll use other more secure forms of communication with clients.

Happy to do that. If you want to set up a call and you want to talk and we do everything on signal and you send me cash in the mail, I've done that many times. That's no problem as well. So happy to work with you on anything that you want.

I don't care about your name. I don't care what email address you need. In today's world, I just use a system that's available. If you want to talk to me about financial planning, if you want to talk about business planning, offshore planning, etc., you can do that at radicalpersonalfinance.com/consult.

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