Las Vegas real estate, mortgage, appraisal blog

The foreclosure prevention bill being referred to now as the "Housing-Recovery Package" has more in there than most people are aware of. It's not unheard of for items to be tacked onto bills in order for the government to make something happen but this is something we should all be taking notice of. An article by William Johnson explains exactly what is in there that Las Vegas residents as well as every American should be aware of.

There is yet another provision of the senate version of this bill and there isn't much publicity on it as yet. This bill has a provision in it that provides that on line purchases made by a credit card, a bankcard, by any alternative payment process such as pay Pal, eBay, Amazon, Google to file aggregate transaction reports to the IRS when totalling more than $10,000 or when more than 200 tranacstions a year. This then may open the door to more detailed information.

The Bill requires online transactions be reported which include the reporting of the identity of the small business receiving party and their taxpayer information. Many small businesses use their social security number for business filing. This burdens on banks, credit card companies and any financial arrangement company and will be more than onerous. Wouldn't this necessarily translate to the potential for higher costs on on line purchases aside from the issue of possible gathering of consumer purchasing history.

It will be interesting to see what lobbies come forth to oppose this inclusion and if they will be successful in removing this provision from the final bill before passage. I scratch my head in wonder as I ponder what this sort of information acquiring has to do with foreclosures and the attempt to minimize them which was supposedly the intent of the bill. I would also love to know who proposed such a thing in the first place. Getting that legislator some well deserved publicity would be interesting as well. If this sort of thing is so desirable for passage, it should be in a stand alone bill, debated and passed or not passed on its merits. But hiding it in another bill should not be allowed.