[o]ne of the goals of this Administration is to make certain that USDA payments are not issued to individuals and entities that exceed income eligibility limits established by law. Once this verification system is fully operational, high-income individuals and entities will be identified by USDA before farm program payments are actually disbursed to them.Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner agreed, adding that "[t]his cooperation between the Treasury Department and USDA will implement reforms from the 2008 Farm Bill to ensure payments go only to those who need them and are supposed to receive them." To read the FSA news release, click here. For the Associated Press article about the change, click here.
However, on Monday, nine members of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee sent a letter to Vilsack requesting that he reconsider the plan, calling it an "unnecessary invasion of privacy" and "clearly against Congressional intent." The letter continues, stating that
those of us responsible for the 2008 farm bill, from which you say this authority flows,did not anticipate farmers signing away their right to keep their tax information confidential while we debated section 1604(d)(1). If we wanted the IRS to share farmer tax information we would have explicitly said so. We did not.The letter was signed by Rep. Frank D. Lucas, R-OK; Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-VA; Rep. Timothy V. Johnson, R-IL; Rep. Sam Graves, R-MO; Rep. Steve King, R-IA; Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-TX; Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-OH; Rep. Adrian Smith, R-NE; and Rep. Bob Latta, R-OH. To read an article on the story, click here. To read the letter that was sent to Vilsack, click here.
