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“Infrastructure Week” has been a running joke inside the DC Beltway for years now. But Congress now appears on a path to enact an infrastructure package.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan package that will make significant investments in our nation’s infrastructure over the course of the next ten years. This agreement was achieved after long and protracted negotiations. Part of those negotiations included debate on a provision that would require financial institutions to report account holder income to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The objective being that this would serve as a tool to help the IRS ensure tax law compliance, while increasing revenues into the Treasury without raising taxes. The League has been watching this proposal closely along with our partners at CUNA.
The good news for credit unions is that the proposal was not directly included in the Senate version of the infrastructure bill. The bad news is that the proposal is still very active and could have strong support, especially among the controlling majorities of both chambers.
The Senate bill contains a provision that calls on the Senate Finance Committee to identify $1 billion in resources that can be used to pay for the infrastructure package. The financial institution reporting proposal could be one of the committee’s recommendations. In fact, during the Senate floor debate, an amendment was offered that would have prohibited the Finance Committee from adopting the financial institution reporting recommendation. That amendment failed 49-50 with Senator Collins voting in favor of the prohibition and Senator King voting against it. The proposal also could be adopted through other pieces of legislation being considered by Congress.
The League will continue to monitor this issue closely and keep our credit unions apprised with updates.