MEETING PRESIDENTIAL GOALS—Continued

• Reducing paper processing as more people file electronically with the Internal Revenue Service. • Consolidating the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund with other community and economic development programs.

Focusing Internal Revenue Service customer service on telephone and Internet and away from walk-in service centers.

PROMOTING ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY AND OWNERSHIP

President Bush has brought tax relief to Americans in each year since 2001 and is working on making this tax relief permanent while reforming the complex tax system. The President has appointed a bipartisan panel to advise the Secretary of the Treasury on options to reform the tax code. The report that the panel will present this year should help move the Nation toward a simpler, fairer, more pro-growth system, which recognizes the importance of home ownership and charity to American society. Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is working to make it easier for taxpayers to comply with Federal income tax rules. Taxpayers used the IRS.gov website 739 million times in 2004 to download forms and publications, up 32 percent from 2003. Electronic filing, which is faster, easier, and far less prone to error than paper filing, increased by 16 percent in 2004 to more than 61 million individual tax returns. IRS estimates that 68 million, or half of all individual returns will be electronically filed in 2005.

Need Customer Assistance?

Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) assists consumers in resolving complaints about national banks and the credit cards issued by those banks. By resolving consumer complaints, OCC returned $4.4 million in fees and charges to national bank customers last year. You can contact OCC's Customer Assistance Group toll-free by telephone, 1-800-613-6743, or by e-mail at Customer.Assistance @ occ.treas.gov. For more information about the OCC's Customer Assistance Group, including information on how to file a formal complaint against a national bank, visit OCC's Customer Assistance web page at www.occ.gov/customer.htm.

A healthy banking system is fundamental to a strong national economy. Treasury maintains the health of the national banking and thrift system through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). OCC and OTS conduct on-site examinations and regulate financial institutions to ensure that institutions are properly capitalized and soundly managed. In addition, OCC and OTS ensure that bank and thrift customers have fair access to financial services by examining banks and thrifts for compliance with consumer banking laws. Finally, OCC and OTS act in conjunction with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to enforce laws and regulations that prevent banks and thrifts from allowing criminals to launder

PROMOTING ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY AND OWNERSHIP-Continued

money through their institutions. In the next few years, the banking regulators will work on updating international uniform safety and soundness standards for banking institutions.

The Administration will again propose broad reform of the supervisory system for Governmentsponsored enterprises (GSES) in the mortgage market: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Bank System. Part of this reform includes establishing a new safety and soundness regulator for the housing GSEs with powers comparable to other world-class financial regulators, and with the stature and resources necessary to carry out its responsibilities. The Budget places this new regulator in the Department of the Treasury. The Administration's proposal promotes a strong, resilient financial system and increased opportunities for affordable homeownership. (See the Credit and Insurance chapter in the Analytical Perspectives volume for a background discussion.)

Treasury's Office of Financial Education contributes to the Administration's pro-growth agenda by equipping Americans with the knowledge needed to improve management of their finances. The 2006 Budget continues its commitment to the Office of Financial Education, which facilitates private sector efforts to raise the level of financial literacy of Americans. Treasury coordinates the financial education efforts of 20 Federal agencies.

PROTECTING AMERICA

The Power of Sanctions: The Commercial Bank of Syria

In 2004, analysts and investigators from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Office of Foreign Asset Control, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division identified the Commercial Bank of Syria as an acute financial threat. The Commercial Bank of Syria served as a haven for the laundering of proceeds generated from violations of United Nations (UN) sanctions against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and the UN's Oil For Food program in Iraq, and retained these proceeds in contravention of international law. Moreover, terrorists and their supporters used the bank and suspicious transactions were processed without oversight. On May 11, 2004, Treasury designated the Commercial Bank of Syria a "primary money laundering concern" under the USA PATRIOT Act. This designation exposed the bank to potentially serious countermeasures, including cutting the bank off entirely from the U.S. financial system. Since May, the Government of Syria has sought to avert such countermeasures by entering into negotiations with Treasury aimed at bringing the country into compliance with international anti-money laundering standards.

The President's Budget commits over $100 million to Treasury's efforts to protect America through detecting and stopping financial crimes, money laundering, and terrorist financing. The Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) fully integrates the operations and assets of the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime (TF/FC), the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA), and the Treasury Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture (TEOAF). The aims of the consolidated TFI organization are safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and wielding Treasury's array of economic tools against rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats. TFI is divided into two functional areas: intelligence and enforcement. OIA provides focused and operable intelligence in support of the Department's mission and policies. TFI's enforcement responsibilities-executed by the TF/FC, OFAC, and FinCEN-include designating and freezing the accounts of terrorists, drug kingpins, and their support networks; implementing U.S. sanctions policy; administering and enforcing the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA); linking law enforcement agencies with financial institutions to uncover illegal activities and schemes; and helping strengthen U.S. and international standards to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. Finally, TFI provides policy guidance for IRS' Criminal Investigation's expert investigators in their anti-money laundering, terrorist financing, and financial crimes cases.

PROTECTING AMERICA-Continued