This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 1st,

2023. I'm Caleb Brown. The Fed's plans to snoop on more of our

financial transactions is at least for now on hold.

The invasive policy would mean the obliteration of a great deal of financial privacy for

average Americans and punish those engaged in small-time side hustles.

Cato's Nick Anthony and Scott Linsicum talk about how the plan would affect financial services and independent workers.

If you compare broadly speaking Democrats rhetoric on tax evasion and this particular policy that we're talking about today from the IRS they could not be further apart.

The pitch is look we have millionaires actively engaging in strategies to avoid paying their quote-unquote

fair share end quote of taxes and then you're looking at trying to require federal monitoring of

bank accounts or transactions using online services of $600 in a year.

And obviously when you're working with small amounts of cash, maybe that you're making

a few thousand bucks, this is not aimed at wealthy people. This is aimed at lower income people who are

who are scrappers, people who are

trying to make ends meet and put a little extra cash in their pocket.

So Nick, you and I have talked about this now a number of times and I remember it striking everyone

is perfectly unconscionable that this kind of policy would move forward.

But where do we stand now with the IRS monitoring your small cash transactions?

Well, you hit the nail on the head there that it's been time and time again.

Folks have been saying or defending this saying that it's going after the billionaires,

it's going after the billionaires. It's going after the the millionaires. But like you said,

$600 doesn't really seem like an effective way to to filter those out. And with all the complaints that have happened now, the IRS decided, just

around Christmas, that they would postpone this requirement, that businesses would have to report when they have $600 in income on things like

...