This post is by Robert W. Wood at Forbes.com.

If he were in charge of travel, the Soup Nazi might say, “No passport for you!”

In real life, travel may seem unrelated to taxes, except perhaps for those annoying airport taxes on international destinations. But a bigger tax and travel connection could keep you at home -- permanently.

A tax law quietly proposed a few months ago that would deny or revoke the passport of anyone who owes $50,000 or more to the Internal Revenue Service is gaining momentum.

In America, we love to tinker with our tax laws. Congress is always introducing one bill or another to tweak an already bloated and increasingly dysfunctional tax system.

It’s curious how ingredients go into the sausage, often making strange legislative bedfellows. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., proposed that if you owe the IRS more than $50,000, you shouldn’t get a passport. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, added an amendment to a highway transportation bill. (Post continues after video.)

Now this "we need the money" provision has morphed into Senate Bill 1813, introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. It was introduced in November and passed by the Senate on March 14 "to reauthorize federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes."

At best, there seems to be a titular connection between this provision and highway safety. Nevertheless, the law would authorize the federal government to prevent Americans from leaving the country if they owe back taxes.

It was Senate Majority Leader Reid who proposed allowing the State Department to 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."

Does this apply in all cases? Mercifully, no. You could travel if your tax debt is being paid in a timely manner or in emergency circumstances or for humanitarian reasons. But this isn’t limited to criminal tax cases or situations where the government fears someone is fleeing a tax debt.

In fact, if the bill is passed, you could have your passport revoked merely because you owe, say, $60,000 and the IRS has filed a notice of lien. Bear in mind that the IRS files tax liens routinely when you owe taxes -- it’s just the agency's way of putting creditors on notice so the IRS will eventually get paid. In that sense, this you-can’t-travel idea seems pretty extreme.

Some commentators note that a far smaller sum of unpaid child support can trigger the same kind of passport action. Why shouldn’t unpaid taxes, they argue? Others attack the proposal as potentially unconstitutional.

Stay tuned as this proposed law is debated.

More from Forbes.com and MSN Money:

• The 10 biggest individual tax expenditures
• When is it time to fire your financial adviser?
• 10 best weekend vacation cities
• Should the IRS share data with police?
• 'Disaster' looms for 2013 tax season
• IRS reviewing 2 million returns for fraud