“Nobody making under 400,000 bucks would have their taxes raised, period.” Joe Biden made variations of this promise numerous times while running for president. We warned it wasn’t true, and we fended off the “fact-checkers” who insisted it was true based solely on the fact that he said so. There are many ways to raise taxes on regular Americans; the government need not limit itself to tax rates. Inflation, for example, is a huge tax, transferring wealth to a government running up massive debt. IRS enforcement of new rules is another, and that’s what could ensnare millions of Americans in this new year thanks to Biden’s so-called “American Rescue Plan.” Some “rescue.”

“Starting this month, third-party payment vendors will report $600 in total annual transitions to the IRS,” says political analyst Steve Green. “That’s not every transaction of $600 or more. That’s if you do more than $600 worth of business with any of them over the course of an entire year.”

To clarify a bit, if you surpass $600 in goods and services transactions (distinct from “personal/friends and family” transactions) via PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, or other payment platforms in any given year, you will find yourself under IRS scrutiny to either justify not paying taxes or to write a check to the U.S. Treasury. This changes the previous reporting requirement for users exceeding 200 transactions totaling $20,000.

In a notice to users, PayPal said: “You may notice that in the coming months we will ask you for your tax information, like a social security number or tax ID, if you haven’t provided it to us already, in order to continue using your account to accept payments for the sale of goods and services transactions and to ensure there aren’t any issues when these changes take effect in 2022. This helps us meet our obligations to the IRS.”

Why this massive invasion of privacy for millions of Americans? Democrats and the IRS are looking for “wealthy tax cheats.” At least that’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

But Democrats want an additional $80 billion for the IRS to ramp up enforcement, of which this is a part. As Green darkly jokes, “You didn’t think Biden needed those 80,000 new IRS agents to cover a few hundred billionaires, did you?”

Indeed, Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) warned, “This supersized IRS will create an army of auditors to come out and go after the tax gap, which lies primarily in income categories under $400,000.”

That’s just Scranton Joe looking out for the little guy. Well, looking out to grab his wallet, anyway.