• Florida lawmakers, joined by Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, announced a plan to combat a massive expansion of the IRS and broadened tax collection efforts.
• Bills sponsored by Senator Blaise Ingoglia and Representative Toby Overdorf are aimed at curbing the IRS’s anticipated new powers.
• Among the IRS proposals being targeted, a so-called “$600 Venmo tax,” would require payment transfer companies to collect taxes on transfers over $600. 
• Patronis and Florida lawmakers plan to require Venmo and other payment companies to allow exceptions with the app so that it does not automatically collect taxes on all transfers.
• The Florida plan also has provisions to give Florida citizens more tools to fight back against overzealous IRS targeting of taxpayers.

Labeling the Biden Administration’s plans to dramatically expand the IRS and crack down on payment app transfers as an effort to fund an out-of-control government “off the backs of honest taxpayers,” Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis unveiled a four-pronged plan he says is designed to protect Floridians from government overreach and keep the IRS in check.

At a press conference on Monday, Patronis pointed to a recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announcement that the agency plans to hire 87,000 new IRS personnel and enforce reporting on popular payment apps, such as Venmo, CashApp and Paypal for all cash transfers over $600, as justification for a pair of Florida bills aimed directly at an overzealous IRS. Patronis appeared at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee to present his “Four Pillars of IRS Protection” plan which he said would safeguarding Florida families and businesses from overreach and targeting by the IRS.

Patronis was joined by members of the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), Florida TaxWatch, The James Madison Institute (JMI), and members of the Florida Legislature, who helped develop his “Four Pillars of IRS Protection” plan in response to the $80 billion appropriation of taxpayer money from the Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed into law last August, which is expected to result in a massive expansion of new IRS personnel. The Biden Administration says those personnel will pay for themselves through the more effective enforcement of United States tax laws.

But Patronis and other Florida leaders believe that means that Biden’s IRS expansion is more likely to increase targeting individual taxpayers rather than dedicate those resources toward audits of larger, more complex organizations. Senate Bill 372 and House Bill 507, in association with the Patronis’s Pillars of IRS protection, were filed recently by Senator Blaise Ingoglia and Representative Toby Overdorf ahead of the 2023 Legislative Session.

“If our own federal government is going to try and shakedown businesses, non-profits, or families in the State of Florida, we will ensure you have the resources to fight back and win,” Patronis said. “Thank you to Senator Ingoglia, Representative Overdorf, the NFIB, Florida Taxwatch, and JMI for their support and I look forward to working together to see these measures through to the finish line, protect our state and stop the IRS money grab.”

The announced plans would directly combat an IRS scheme to force apps like Cash App, Venmo, Paypal to collect federal taxes on transfers of $600 or more. The new Florida proposals would require those Big Tech payment operators to collect additional information about the transfer, allowing users to avoid paying taxes, if, for example, the cash transfer was to a family member rather than a taxable purchase of goods or services.

Patronis described the plan as, “throwing red tape back at Big Tech and the IRS.”

The Florida proposals also include: “transparency as a disinfectant,” a concept that Patronis describes as requiring notification of IRS access of state-chartered banks and creating a transparency report. In cases were discrimination or ideological targeting were later proven, the proposals seeks to provide full financial restoration of all costs and impacts related to an IRS enforcement action through a Florida-based fund set aside for that purpose. 

The proposals would also provide penalties for IRS agents operating in Florida who illegally target taxpayers based on political ideology or other factors.