Trump announces new US tax agency

The president-elect wants to set up an ‘External Revenue Service’ to collect tariffs

The US will establish an ‘External Revenue Service’ to collect tariffs and duties from foreign imports, President-elect Donald Trump has said.

Trump campaigned on generating government revenue by levying tariffs on overseas goods, the way the US did before introducing the income tax in 1913.

“I am today announcing that I will create the EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE to collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday.

“We will begin charging those that make money off of us with Trade, and they will start paying, FINALLY, their fair share,” he added.

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Trump presented the ‘ERS’ as the counterpart to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US tax authority originally established during the Civil War in 1862.

“Through soft and pathetically weak Trade agreements, the American Economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the World, while taxing ourselves. It is time for that to change,” he said.

According to Trump, the “birth date” of the new agency would be January 20, the date he is scheduled to take the oath of office for his second term in the White House. While US presidents can create new agencies with executive orders, it takes an act of Congress to make them permanent and secure their operational funding.

US Customs and Border Protection, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security, is currently tasked with collecting tariff and customs revenue.

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Earlier in the day, Trump adviser Steven Bannon argued in favor of shifting the burden of US government funding to tariffs over taxation.

“Tariffs paid for everything up until the early 20th century,” Bannon told a conference organized by Politico in Washington. “But you wouldn’t just look at tariffs, you look at everything about how you can charge fees essentially, whether that’s on investment, whether that’s on other things of access to this country. America’s behind the golden door, OK? And this market is the most robust, lucrative market in the world, and we shouldn’t just let people have access, we shouldn’t let foreigners have access to this market and to the American people and American citizens for free.”

According to Bannon, the new tariff agency would operate under the Treasury and “take the burden off” the IRS.