Bitcoin Forum

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/29/16717416/us-coinbase-irs-records

How do you think this affects Bitcoin?

The government is now seeking for that users to pay their taxes from the past years, This is clear that the interest of government in crypto currency is positive to have a legal action to those users who holds lots of money from bitcoin.

Ii is not like it wasn't anticipated, government is starting to get their claws in peoples crypto assets. But I think that one should pay taxes from their btc gains, I think it is a somewhat a compromise since government will not stop with taxation. i think that all transactions of individual is completely other matter and should stay private.

Yeah its an old news though. US citizens are under scrutiny for now.

What's news is that it's final. The court ordered it just now. Back then, there were hopes that the IRS won't be getting what it wanted. The IRS always gets what it wants though, apparently.

How does this affect Bitcoin users though? I've never used Coinbase, so I'm fine, but if you were on that list and you didn't file a cent for taxes, how screwed are you?

As for its effect on Bitcoin itself, I doubt there will be much. As the article has said, there are quite a few people who voluntarily filed for taxes. It's kind of a hassle, but it's your duty as a citizen to pay taxes anyway. I'm not saying it's right, but it's not like people have a choice now.

14,300 out of a million subs...nothing not even a blip on the index meter. It is closing in on the end of year tax codes, and the IRS, is just attempting to get a list of the bigger players, to have a feel or in other words to see if those bigger players are reporting on their capital gains. This is something everyone should prepare to do if Your investment rises above the tax code rates for you, normally file. I certainly know I will make sure my accountant see’s to it that my crypto is included in my returns.

Very informative article on crypto and taxes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/08/04/how-to-report-bitcoin-cash-and-avoid-irs-trouble/#1427ffde3066

Government is now into bitcoin because of the huge value. it is possible that coinbase will allow to give the information of the specific holder of a huge amount of bitcoin to government.? or maybe coinbase will have an additional script that if you transfer huge amount of bitcoin private, information is needed.

US only by chance?

I don't think it is a good news for Bitcoin and investors. Maybe Government want to control cryptocurrency and collect tax income from investors.

This is just the beginning of the government trying to get involved. They always want their share even if they don't believe in it (so they say). We will have to see how this plays out but I think Bitcoin will continue to increase in value despite the government getting involved.

It depends on your activity on coinbase, if you are a day trader you are going to get destroyed by the IRS since you need to pay tax each time you made a profit and you are going to need an accountant to solve that situation, however if you only bought bitcoin and have not sold then the IRS has nothing to tax since you only generate taxes when you sell your bitcoin and not when you buy it.

Yes. The IRS is based on the US, so they only have jurisdiction over US customers. This creates precedent though, and nothing is stopping other governments from doing the same thing with other exchanges. The US-based whales are going to have a problem on their hands.

Basically, if you don't want any problems, don't use exchanges unless you absolutely have to. Or you know, pay your taxes.

As cypto currencies are getting popular, this move from governments and central banks will come sooner or later. The good news is if we hold on to our crypto currencies, there won’t be any taxes.

Looks like it only applies if you bought or sold more than $20k in a single year.  But this ruling wouldn’t bother me anyway.  Gotta pay those taxes ...

Sort of .... the IRS is probably mostly going to look at sell orders and whether or not profits were made.  Buys probably won’t matter much.  But technically, if I bought a coin at $100 years ago, then used my coin yesterday to buy a $10,000 motorcycle from a dealer that takes Bitcoin, I should be claiming $9900 profit on my next tax return....  I bet most people wouldn’t though, and it may be hard to catch.

This is Bad, other country see IRS as their "role model" in creating laws regarding taxes, I hope Philippines will not copy this law and do the same thing. This is frustrating and at the same time it gives me chills. This exchanges must be laughing their ass off for not protecting our identity. I am deeply concerned by this, I really hope other country will not the same, this is really not a good news.

This is not the first incident of the similar kind. Even in 2014, people were getting notice from the IRS, to pay taxes on their income from Bitcoins. Sooner or later, the other countries will also follow similar measures. Because now Bitcoins (and the other cryptos) have earned a reputation as an easy way to hide your wealth and to evade taxes.

I don't like the decision, on one side you are not legalising Bitcoin and other side you are taking taxes from the from the people who owns Bitcoin.what if people bought Bitcoins from their savings with the expectation that bitcoin will give more return on their money than any bank.

Coinbase has won a partial victory in their ongoing legal battle with the IRS regarding the disclosure of private user information. According to Coinbase, the government initially sought records on over 500,000 users in their efforts to catch tax cheats. After months of legal wrangling, Coinbase announced that the IRS has reduced their records request to only 14,000 users, a 97% reduction.

Coinbase also announced that the amount of documentation requested by the IRS has been substantially reduced. The company’s blog post did not reveal the criteria used to determine the 14,000 “high volume” users the IRS is interested in. Nor did Coinbase reveal the extent of the documentation that the tax agency is now seeking.

bitcoin IS legal in US, and it is considered a commodity over there. and also IRS has been taking taxes from bitcoin investors for years now. they had the rules and forms and all for it from 2013 i believe.
these 14,355 are most probably whales on Coinbase with a large amounts of money transferred from their banks to Coinbase and vice versa so they got flagged. if they have been paying their taxes, then good. otherwise they are in a lot of trouble now :D

I think the US govt is also lending legitimacy to bitcoin with this as well, since they're basically saying that bitcoin income is taxable.

And so it begins. It's inevitable that the government will get their hands on Bitcoin once it's popularity has reached a threshold that permits them to "look into" it. Bitcoin price is so high nowadays that just moving 2 BTC already warrants an IRS audit in Coinbase. Well, death and taxes i guess.

Yes but with the price of bitcoin increasing things are getting harder, in the past with  a bitcoin price of 200 dollars you could by 100BTC with 20k, but now those same 20k only buy more than 1 BTC so the amount of bitcoin you can get with your money before being tagged for inspection is getting lower by the day, it is better to stay away from exchanges from now on.