Don’t get excited or fearful just yet. The IRS has not yet announced a tax amnesty for people who failed to report their gains and income from Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. But there has long been speculation that it might happen. And given recent developments, we may now be one step closer. It is well-known that the IRS is looking hard at Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency transactions, hoping to scoop up some tax dollars. Frighteningly, much of the IRS attention now appears to be focused on the criminal end of the spectrum. IRS Criminal Investigation Agents evidently are being trained in the field.
The IRS Criminal Investigation Division not only ordered training for its agents. It also entered into a contract with Chainanalysis for tracking. We may expect this area to unfold materially in the coming years and not in a happy way. A Justice Department attorney recently noted that IRS scrutiny on tax reporting could prompt new procedures for users to get right with the IRS. Mark F. Daly, senior litigation counsel in the Justice Department Tax Division, made the remarks in a Nov. 3, 2017 symposium held by the State Bar of Texas Tax Section. It was released by webcast on Nov. 9.
Mr. Daly also noted the widely publicized statistic that only 807 people reported Bitcoin to the IRS between 2013 and 2015. In contrast, there are hundreds of thousands of Coinbase account holders and climbing all the time. The sheer transaction volume of all those property transactions is frankly staggering. The IRS is not blind to this. Read more here... There will always be a tug of war between IRS and those people they suspect are not declaring and paying the correct amount of taxes that they should...and this is happening not because there is a new field around called cryptocurrency but has been happening since time immemorial. Honestly speaking, paying tax can be a burden most especially if we feel that the government is not anymore worth of our trust and confidence and when we are not so much patriotic anymore thinking that paying tax is good for the whole country. As the one mandated by the law to go after tax collection and management, IRS will always be exerting all of its resources and creativity in ensuring that all are paying taxes including those involved in Bitcoin. As the saying goes, we can never avoid death as well as taxes.
Are you paying your correct taxes lately including that of your Bitcoin transactions? Please tell me honestly...that's an order !!!
