Free Republic

To comply with unconstitutional pseudo-treaties negotiated by the Obama administration without the consent of Congress or any semblance of constitutional authority, the IRS announced that it will be sharing private financial information on U.S. bank account holders with foreign powers. No warrant is needed for foreign governments or tyrants to peruse the sensitive information at will — including brutal communist regimes and possibly even criminals or hackers.

The IRS has unveiled a secure web application, the International Data Exchange Service (IDES), for cross-border data sharing. IDES will allow Foreign Financial Institutions (FFIs) and tax authorities from other countries to transmit financial data on U.S. taxpayers’ accounts, via an encrypted pathway, to the IRS. The tool is part of the IRS’s effort to track U.S. taxpayer income globally. It is intended to assist FFIs and foreign tax authorities in their compliance with the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The act requires that financial institutions send to the IRS financial information of American account holders or face...