IRS Gains Access To Data On 14,355 Coinbase Customers

[Lucian Armasu]

A federal court in California approved IRS' request to access the data on 14,355 Coinbase customers that have traded more than $20,000 per transaction between 2013 and 2015. The request is narrower than IRS' original request to obtain all customers' data.

IRS Gains Access To Data On 14,355 Coinbase Customers : Read more

 

[husker]

I've been saying for years this was coming. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Banking laws are very complex and not taken lightly. Trying to find a way around financial regulations is challenging the federal government (pick your country) on it's #1 issue.

 

[why_wolf]

Should be the same as the laws required for stock/commodities transactions. All of it is reported to the IRS. When you file your tax return the IRS just checks to see if lied against the information they already have.

Side note but there isn't actually a reason for people to send in tax returns, the IRS already has all of the information you provide on your return. But a certain lobbying group got the rules changed so that a pointless billion dollar industry could have captured customers once a year.

 

[bit_user]

I've been saying for years this was coming. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Banking laws are very complex and not taken lightly. Trying to find a way around financial regulations is challenging the federal government (pick your country) on it's #1 issue.

I signed up for a Coinbase account in 2015, after they had signed agreements with many states and promised to be in compliance with US financial regulations. The last thing I need is the IRS or SEC or somebody saying I'm doing something wrong.

Anyway, I didn't actually know what information the IRS had access to, from financial institutions. I thought it was pretty much carte blanche, for them. As I understand it, 4th amendment protections don't apply to something you disclose to a 3rd party. In this case, I thought that meant financial institutions were fair game for them.

BTW, I thought it was a minor miracle that the US didn't outright ban cryptocurrencies, back when Bitcoin started to show up on people's radar screens. Controlling the money supply is one of the very few levers the US government has on the economy. But the horse is now out of the barn, and by the time this becomes an issue, there will be such massive amounts of wealth in the form of cryptocurrencies that it will be politically impossible to ban them.

 

[bit_user]

Side note but there isn't actually a reason for people to send in tax returns, the IRS already has all of the information you provide on your return.

I've heard that in many European countries, the government simply sends you a bill for any taxes you owe.

 

[bit_user]

the IRS will be able to get the data on anyone who has traded more than $20,000 between 2013 and 2015 in any single transaction.

When I was active on coinbase, they had a $10k/day transaction limit, for normal users. So, I'm a bit surprised there were so many people who went above 2x of that.