IRS Power To Revoke Passports Signed Into Law

Here is a crossover tax and immigration issue.  Robert Wood in Forbes reports that President Obama has signed a new passport provision into law.  A new section 7345 to the Internal Revenue Code is part of H.R. 22 – Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, the “FAST Act.”

Why are passport covered in the tax code, you might ask? The title of the new section is “Revocation or Denial of Passport in Case of Certain Tax Delinquencies.” In 2012, Government Accountability Office reported on the potential for using the issuance of passports to collect taxes. The provision was slipped into the massive highway funding bill. The section on passports begins on page 1,113. The joint explanatory statement is here, beginning on page 38.

The new law provides that the State Department can revoke, deny or limit passports for anyone the IRS certifies as having a seriously delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000.  

Hat tip to Francine Lipman.

KJ

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