Bitcoin Forum

There used to be lots of talks about the irs cracking down on coinbase accounts. Is there anything new on this? Did someone get fined or arrested?

Did anything happen?

The IRS is in no way cracking down on the exchanges. Now they are going to do their job and go after tax cheats who want to stick their neighbors with the bill. That is what the IRS does.

Pay your taxes and ignore the IRS. Or cheat on your taxes and pay the price. Plus interest and penalties, and jail time.

The clear message with this is this: DO NOT MESS UP WITH IRS or else you can experience what it means to be in hell while still here on Earth! Now going back to the main story. IRS demanded from Coinbase to hand to them all their customer data (if am not mistaken) but Coinbase insisted that it should be limited to those members who are US citizens as they also have many clients abroad. I think later on IRS retreated their position and would just accept those from the US citizens. Fortunately for Coinbase, there are politicians expressing an alarm about the request and so it became a pressure for IRS to reconsider their demand and position.

It was only US citizens with over $20k worth. And it never happened.

It's total BS anyways. The IRS has no right to any of it until the convert to fiat. It's out of the purview of the state until it's fiat so they are not providing any facilitation of it's use that isn't already taxed.

I wouldn't call it anything but a pathetic attempt to see if people would willingly hand over funds for no reason.

I don't want to get into an argument about the moral aspects. I'm quite opposed to the government on almost all levels. But the legal issue here is that the IRS doesn't have a right to go on a fishing expedition. The request was overly broad. With a narrower, arguably more reasonable description of a class which they are seeking transaction history for, they might succeed. Or in case of specific individuals they are looking into.

Coinbase is extremely compliance-oriented; one of their top executives recently said their goal was to be the most compliant exchange in the space. So Coinbase users should be practical and assume that Coinbase won't protect them if push comes to shove.

Amen. I dont know if they assumed CB would instantly cave, given the brevity of the initial request. Essentially, they were dumb for not defining the class better in the first place, its like they thought CB doesnt have lawyers. But, eventually they WILL give up the info, or they will cease to exist as they operate within the United States. You can play the game, but you will never win, so to speak, against a gov. Coinbase juuust had another 100 million dollar round of funding, trust and believe they will comply before they fuck that up for themselves.

Bitcoin. Its decentralized for a reason, dammit.

You can't "win" when you accept defeat, like you two are interested in.

You make it sound like they are entitled to it. Like there is something lawful about taxes on cryptos before conversion to fiat. There is not. The reason it hasn't been in court yet is because best case scenario FUD like you two want wins general perception so no one challenges something unlawful.

Coinbase is the one that might be skipping out on taxes. If they sell Bitcoin and gain income, they must pay tax. It's simple... If Coinbase acquires a bunch of wealth in the purview of the state, the stake of obligation of protection & service to Coinbase increases for the state. Hence they have a reason to tax Coinbase. That's precisely why taxes exist.

Nah, Im just being a realist. They are entitled to your records, at least, this is a condition of living in the United States unfortunately (well, the sovereign citizen folks dont agree with that , but thats a different conversation). I havent examined it, but Im pretty sure that the Coinbase TOS gives them the right to release these records (I am proud that they are doing this, but in this particular administration, I havent seen too many corps win against requests for information). Sessions isnt having that noise on his watch. I think that they could seize these records with a "legitimate" concern of criminal activity, even if just by the reporting requirements that make up KYC/AML.

Understand, I live on 95% crypto (I use Gyft and the Shift card, which is offered by Coinbase, on a daily basis). I just, have been around long enough to know how inevitable taxes are, and how persistent the tax man can truly be, when you get in their sights ;) )

Coinbase, of course, would protect their clients up to a certain extent but when there can be an unbearable pressures from many sides then they might choose to first protect their business. However, I believe that they should really fight teeth and nail before any branch of the government can get into the privacy of their data. It just the right thing to do and this is actually making the right decision for the sake of the members. Once members can feel that their service provider can be trusted and would fight for them anytime anyhow then that trust be bolstered otherwise their reputation can suffer if they could compromise with the government without any legal basis and without any fighting. It is time for firms or businesses of the country to speak up against the tendency of IRS to go overboard...they should be challenged in all aspects if there is an insinuation of possible abuse of power...in reality or just theoretically.

I am always surprised at how little people know about taxes. I guess it's a combination of an ever more complex system and a total lack of teaching taxes in schools.

In the USA you owe tax anytime you make money. If you earn money from work you owe income tax.
If you see a gain in value when you trade something, be it money or anything, you owe capitol gains tax.

Even if you find a gold ring buried in your yard you owe on it. ALL MONEY IS TAXABLE. This is not the government attacking bitcoin. It has been the law for decades.
 

The one good thing is that unrealized capital gains are not taxable; and wealth is not taxable (at least for the present). Even that might change going forward. Negative interest rates are essentially a tax on the cash that you have.

If this is exactly what happen then I will believe that IRS is only bouyant when it comes to ordinary citizens who have no clouts in the corridors of power and they are not as dreadful as being portrayed by American movies which is complete opposite to what I am reading here. But looking at it when they wake up from their slumber, Coinbase will have no option than to give in because by the time they have court order, disobeying will be contempt which could mean more trouble for the business.

Yeah this is pretty nice, since I can just hodl and not worry about anything until it's time to cash out.

It's practically impossible. If they were to do that, they'd have to start from the beginning of transactions with coinbase. It would take forever.

They don't have the time to shut coinbase down imo. The government itself is still trying to figure out what to do with crypto and since they're a federal institution, they only move when the government allows it.

I think what we all heard were rumors
the irs doesn't have the time and resources (and intelligence) to come in to regulate. But everyone should expect regulation coming

Regulation will be coming.

But it will be a good thing, IMO.  It will legitimize the currency, end differing definitions of what Bitcoin "is" at various regulators, and probably put in place a framework for ICOs that balances the innovative financing model with some level of protection.  They're also looking at chartering limited purpose Federal banks for crypto exchange businesses, which might sound scary but the reality is they would be a big benefit in legitimizing the business model without having to go through the 40+ states that require money transmitter licenses.

Some regulation is necessary for widespread, mainstream trust and acceptance.  Which seems counter-intuitive to some extent but that's the fact of the matter.

Exactly, there has to be a taxable event.  For example, trading mutual funds that are held under a 401k plan are NOT taxable events.  Why would trading BTC be any different?

See:

It will still happen what the IRS has done is to retreat not give up by going back to the drawing board to put their paper works in order, get the law on their side and probably to get rid of the bottlenecks in terms of human factors that could influence their decisions among others. For someone who is transacting with Coinbase, this is like a time to put your records in other because whether we all like it or not, it's coming and when it does they would go after everybody really hard.

Coinbase did not charge for transactions before, but I stopped using CoinBase after the day it started charging for each transaction. I do not recommend Coinbase.

Why the hell will they do that? IRS is a government department of the United States and as far as I know it operates in a legal way, they are not the FBI or CIA in which they are authorize to do so. They need to have permission with Coinbase before accessing those accounts as if they do without any permission they are in violation of the users' privacy. Also even if they are successful on penetrating a wallet how will they link you or how will they link your transactions if it came from a mode of payment or just a remittance? It would be a complete waste of time for their part.

As of now, their hasn't been any major crackdowns upon tax evasion for bitcoin, and crypto currencies alike. In the future, the regulations that will be put into affect, will act as a map for legal guidance concerning tax compliancy, and many other financial related policies.
   Coinbase was subpoenaed to hand over tax information of all account holders with $20,000 dollars or more in bitcoin related transactions. Whether or not that makes others acount holders who fall under this amount in total transactions exempt, is quite questionable. The best advice to give you, would be to follow the crypto related news outlets, and other mediums of media quite carefully. Regulations will come about gradually (slowly but surely)!
  For now, researcher the previous entries of regulation, and policy by checking places like coindesk.com, etc.

Regulation will be coming.

But it will be a good thing, IMO.  It will legitimize the currency, end differing definitions of what Bitcoin "is" at various regulators, and probably put in place a framework for ICOs that balances the innovative financing model with some level of protection.  They're also looking at chartering limited purpose Federal banks for crypto exchange businesses, which might sound scary but the reality is they would be a big benefit in legitimizing the business model without having to go through the 40+ states that require money transmitter licenses.

Some regulation is necessary for widespread, mainstream trust and acceptance.  Which seems counter-intuitive to some extent but that's the fact of the matter.

I really hate it that regulations still need to happen but you are right. Regulations sometimes means that this thing can be trusted and it will give investors confidence to buy cryptocurrencies. I just still hope that our tax department only tax bitcoins if it is converted to fiat.

Cost basis is not the simple equation with all things bitcoin related..  proving cost basis gets pretty tricky as well.    No central exchange to say what was the price on any given day during the Mt Gox fiasco (there was insane arbitrage.. so what WAS the price during those days?)

Not everything was simple bought & sold on one exchange with one price...  mark to market is the devil in the details..  mining, alt coins, gifts..  how long you held which parts of which bits can make for short term / long term gains.. hacked, lost, scammed...  etc

The IRS has always been working with Coinbase, I don't know why anyone would be surprised to find out about that. You never had any privacy using Coinbase. Everything you do is automatically reported to the IRS, so you better keep track of all of your movements or else you'll have problems.



There are MANY voids when it comes to tracking the bitcoin price back what it was a certain date. This is why I haven't sold a single bitcoin yet.

For example, my trading history in Mintpal and Cryptsy is gone as the exchanges are dead, so what the hell im supposed to do now if I want to sell these coins? I don't have a clear track history of my gains on there... this sucks. If you sell, you are taking a gamble to see what they will do about it. They may steal all of it for all I know. Since I have not seen any precedents, im not going to sell until someone else does it first to see what happens exactly on that situation.

Couldn't have said it any better..


PAY ALL TAXES. STOP TRYING TO WORK AROUND THE SYSTEM.

I feel as if their should an age requirement in order to signup on this site.

Everyone is trying to dodge taxes, no wonder they are cracking down.

Despicable.

Kid played with Bitcoin and made millions and now they wanna take him to prison...Common that is not gonna happen. Governments still don't have a clear model of how this should work yet. A kid is still free and spending his money.

Americans have always very carefully monitor the payment of taxes. It's bad when people don't pay taxes. My opinion is that if you don't like how you distribute your taxes then you have a chance in the elections to change the team. By default you have accepted the terms of payment of taxes. So you have to pay or go to jail.

Of course people try to avoid paying tax, I can't blame them for that. If you invest $50,000 in crypto, which is money you (likely) paid tax over numerous times already, and again be forced to pay tax, it's going to feel like you are being robbed (even more so than the previous time you paid tax over the same amount of money). It's a legal form of theft that you indirectly try to justify right now -- people avoiding tax aren't doing anything other than protecting their capital from money hungry authorities. I am actually shocked to see you speak out like that. Do you seriously believe that if the tax rates were appropriate and humane, that people would even consider avoid paying "due" taxes? Seriously, this actually angers me....

I've seen quite a few posts from people who've been told they're one of the thirteen thousand reported to the IRS. What's interesting is that they've never sold on there and they're not American nor have ever been there.

Americans, your tax dollars are being wasted pursuing ghosts.

It doesn't matter whether you've sold on Coinbase or even if you are American. The order is for "all users who have bought, sold, sent, or received more than $20,000 through their accounts in a single year between 2013 and 2015." That means that people using Coinbase merely as a web wallet can be reported to the IRS -- yet another reason never to use third party web wallets. You are subject to their jurisdiction, whether or not you've done anything wrong.

That said, you don't need to provide much PII to Coinbase to use them as a wallet, and if you didn't sell on Coinbase there is no proof that you have taxes due. Nonetheless, it's an extreme invasion of privacy, so people should take note.


Don't we know it! Suggestions? Our tax dollars are used to murder countless children, too. Not much we can do about it, short an actual revolution. And I'm all for revolution, but this population? Completely pacified and stupefied.

With crypto you at least have a choice to not pay tax, but that requires complete isolation where you can't use any central service within this ecosystem at all. I am all for a revolution too, and would love to participate in one.

And legally, even with that complete isolation you are committing a severe crime according to the law, which is almost funny if you think about it. I see you willingly paying tax over your holdings as you agreeing with this system.

I agree with richardsNY in that regard, it's theft and theft only. And as you pointed out, it's income that the USA uses to finance its endless horrific crimes against humanity, and that year after year.

People allow this system to remain up and running, where nothing even points to a potential shift away from people's brainwashed fool mentality.

Mining is completely being attacked by the IRS

I will stand along with those accounts not to be individually prosecuted by government for taxation purposes, it’s beter for all that the exchanges/provider is the one be audited and in every transaction there is a percentage % that will be given to IrS. It will lessen the corruption and the same way that the privacy of the clients/bitcoin users be protected.