Copied from WSJ online:
Cryptocurrencies are exploding—and so is the Internal Revenue Service’s pursuit of Americans who aren’t paying taxes on them. With Tax Day approaching, it’s a good time to clean up your act if you’ve been lax about taxes on crypto. Not doing so could compound future tax problems, especially if you have traded a lot or have more than a small stake.
Two new IRS efforts to find crypto tax cheats stand out: In April, a federal judge in Boston approved an IRS summons to the payments company known as Circle and its affiliates, including Poloniex, to turn over customer records to the agency. And in early May, a federal judge in San Francisco approved another IRS summons for records to the crypto exchange known as Kraken. In both cases, the turnover applies to customers who had more than $20,000 in transactions in any year from 2016 through 2020.
“With these summonses and other actions, the IRS is mounting a full-court press to show taxpayers how seriously it takes cryptocurrency compliance,” says Don Fort, a former chief of IRS criminal investigation now with Kostelanetz & Fink. “Taxpayers should take it seriously too.”
The Kraken and Circle summonses are the IRS’s way of getting at information it can’t get otherwise. While brokerage firms have to report many stock sales and other information to the IRS so it can check tax compliance, there’s little to no such reporting required of crypto exchanges currently. This lack of reporting can make bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies attractive to criminals and tax evaders, and the IRS is determined to go after them.
A spokesman for Circle said the company expects to work with the IRS in responding to the summons. A spokeswoman for Kraken said, “We are concerned about governmental intrusion into our customers’ privacy and hope to work with the IRS in a way that protects our clients’ interests. The judge has invited further briefing from Kraken.”
The new summonses aren’t the first of their kind. In 2016, the IRS received approval for a similar summons of the crypto firm Coinbase Global and obtained information for about 13,000 customers. The agency sent letters urging many of them to make sure their crypto taxes were paid, as the IRS might soon take a hard look.
To justify the new searches of Kraken and Circle, the IRS divulged some results of the Coinbase campaign. In court filings, the agency said it has received more than 1,000 amended tax returns and collected $13 million from crypto holders with more than $20,000 of transactions, plus another $12 million from other crypto notices, and audits are ongoing.
Some Coinbase customers have entered the IRS’s Voluntary Disclosure program for taxpayers with criminal liability. This program usually lets participants out of prosecution but imposes large penalties.
The IRS also cited (without names) several taxpayers it has been examining who had accounts at Kraken and Circle. Among them: one person who didn’t report more than $5.6 million of crypto transactions, most from a Kraken account, and another who filed amended returns as a result of the Coinbase search revealing $1.6 million in unreported crypto transactions, some at Poloniex.
When the judge in the Kraken case took issue with the broad array of information sought by the IRS, the agency responded by saying the information received from Coinbase was insufficient to identify 750 Coinbase customers who sold more than $100 million of crypto.
As a result, Kraken may have to turn over phone numbers and email addresses as well as the customer’s name, date of birth, taxpayer ID number, and physical address. The IRS is also asking for funding sources and movements of funds into and out of accounts, among other things. A Kraken spokeswoman said the details of the turnover haven’t been completed. The IRS is requesting a broad array of information from Circle as well.
An IRS filing also says—ominously for some—that the agency wants to compare the Kraken data it receives with data it has on offshore crypto transactions. It didn’t identify the source of this offshore data.
As Mr. Fort noted, the new searches are only part of the IRS’s current campaign to combat what it thinks is widespread tax cheating on cryptocurrencies. Last fall the agency moved a question about crypto holdings near the top of the 2020 tax return for filers to check Yes or No, raising the stakes for cheaters. It’s also working on regulations to require information reporting on crypto trades akin to what brokerage firms report on their customers, and to estimate a “tax gap” for crypto taxes owed but not paid.
The bottom line: if you’ve gotten a free tax ride on cryptocurrency, don’t count on its continuing. Ignoring the issue could bring a large future IRS bill for penalties—or even criminal prosecution. For those confused by the rules, here are key points.
Cryptocurrencies are exploding—and so is the Internal Revenue Service’s pursuit of Americans who aren’t paying taxes on them. With Tax Day approaching, it’s a good time to clean up your act if you’ve been lax about taxes on crypto. Not doing so could compound future tax problems, especially if you have traded a lot or have more than a small stake.
Two new IRS efforts to find crypto tax cheats stand out: In April, a federal judge in Boston approved an IRS summons to the payments company known as Circle and its affiliates, including Poloniex, to turn over customer records to the agency. And in early May, a federal judge in San Francisco approved another IRS summons for records to the crypto exchange known as Kraken. In both cases, the turnover applies to customers who had more than $20,000 in transactions in any year from 2016 through 2020.
“With these summonses and other actions, the IRS is mounting a full-court press to show taxpayers how seriously it takes cryptocurrency compliance,” says Don Fort, a former chief of IRS criminal investigation now with Kostelanetz & Fink. “Taxpayers should take it seriously too.”
The Kraken and Circle summonses are the IRS’s way of getting at information it can’t get otherwise. While brokerage firms have to report many stock sales and other information to the IRS so it can check tax compliance, there’s little to no such reporting required of crypto exchanges currently. This lack of reporting can make bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies attractive to criminals and tax evaders, and the IRS is determined to go after them.
A spokesman for Circle said the company expects to work with the IRS in responding to the summons. A spokeswoman for Kraken said, “We are concerned about governmental intrusion into our customers’ privacy and hope to work with the IRS in a way that protects our clients’ interests. The judge has invited further briefing from Kraken.”
The new summonses aren’t the first of their kind. In 2016, the IRS received approval for a similar summons of the crypto firm Coinbase Global and obtained information for about 13,000 customers. The agency sent letters urging many of them to make sure their crypto taxes were paid, as the IRS might soon take a hard look.
To justify the new searches of Kraken and Circle, the IRS divulged some results of the Coinbase campaign. In court filings, the agency said it has received more than 1,000 amended tax returns and collected $13 million from crypto holders with more than $20,000 of transactions, plus another $12 million from other crypto notices, and audits are ongoing.
Some Coinbase customers have entered the IRS’s Voluntary Disclosure program for taxpayers with criminal liability. This program usually lets participants out of prosecution but imposes large penalties.
The IRS also cited (without names) several taxpayers it has been examining who had accounts at Kraken and Circle. Among them: one person who didn’t report more than $5.6 million of crypto transactions, most from a Kraken account, and another who filed amended returns as a result of the Coinbase search revealing $1.6 million in unreported crypto transactions, some at Poloniex.
When the judge in the Kraken case took issue with the broad array of information sought by the IRS, the agency responded by saying the information received from Coinbase was insufficient to identify 750 Coinbase customers who sold more than $100 million of crypto.
As a result, Kraken may have to turn over phone numbers and email addresses as well as the customer’s name, date of birth, taxpayer ID number, and physical address. The IRS is also asking for funding sources and movements of funds into and out of accounts, among other things. A Kraken spokeswoman said the details of the turnover haven’t been completed. The IRS is requesting a broad array of information from Circle as well.
An IRS filing also says—ominously for some—that the agency wants to compare the Kraken data it receives with data it has on offshore crypto transactions. It didn’t identify the source of this offshore data.
As Mr. Fort noted, the new searches are only part of the IRS’s current campaign to combat what it thinks is widespread tax cheating on cryptocurrencies. Last fall the agency moved a question about crypto holdings near the top of the 2020 tax return for filers to check Yes or No, raising the stakes for cheaters. It’s also working on regulations to require information reporting on crypto trades akin to what brokerage firms report on their customers, and to estimate a “tax gap” for crypto taxes owed but not paid.
The bottom line: if you’ve gotten a free tax ride on cryptocurrency, don’t count on its continuing. Ignoring the issue could bring a large future IRS bill for penalties—or even criminal prosecution. For those confused by the rules, here are key points.
