Is IRS Overstepping Boundaries by Issuing Summons to Coinbase?
Is the John Doe summons issued by IRS to Coinbase valid and falls within the guidelines of the department? The eyes of the cryptocurrency community are on Coinbase ever since it got served with a John Doe summons by the IRS. The summon requires Coinbase to hand over all information pertaining to the platform’s users between 2013 and 2015. The issue of generic, blanket information request by the IRS has given rise to few questions regarding the powers of the government institution and constitutional rights of individuals. Even though Coinbase has filed an appeal against the summons in the....
Related News
IRS should have done better to make it easier for the cryptocurrency community to file taxes instead of labeling all Coinbase users as potential tax evaders. The recent incident involving Coinbase and IRS is well known. The US government department responsible for enforcing tax compliance had issued a John Doe summons to the leading cryptocurrency platform. The summons demanded the company to furnish details about all its customers, their entire transaction history from 2013 till 2015 and any other information associated with their accounts. The demands of IRS have been contested by....
Jeffrey Berns, an attorney representing Coinbase in its legal fight against the Internal Revenue Service summons to provide customer information, recently filed a response to the “John Doe” summons, asking the court to quash the summons in its entirety, order a limited hearing and discovery into government’s good faith, or reconsider its decision to grant the IRS petition. Berns’ motion calls the IRS summons “unprecedented use” of the IRS John Doe summons procedure. Coinbase has said it is committed to customer privacy and opposes the government’s efforts to gain customer information.....
On 30th November, 2016, a federal court issued an order allowing the IRS to serve an unprecedented summons on Coinbase, Inc, a cryptocurrency exchange, seeking the identities of each of the company's millions of US customers and essentially every piece of information in the company's possession concerning those customers. As a consumer protection and class action attorney (as well as a cryptocurrency and blockchain entrepreneur), I am deeply concerned about the potential impact that Coinbase's disclosure of this information could have on the burgeoning industry. I am also troubled by the....
The Federal Court of Northern California District rules in favor of the John Doe summons issued on behalf of the IRS to Coinbase. Bad news for the Bitcoin community! In the days following Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) John Doe summons to Coinbase, the federal court in the Northern District of California has ruled in favor of the department. The ruling comes after Coinbase filed an appeal, seeking clarification about the extent of IRS authority and validity of the summons. With the latest ruling authorizing the IRS to serve John Doe summons to Coinbase, the digital currency platform will....
On November 17, the IRS filled a “John Doe” summons targeting transaction records of prominent bitcoin company Coinbase’s bitcoiners registered between January 2013 and December 2015. At the time, the exchange argued it takes user privacy very seriously, and as such it would work towards protecting it. On December 1, a federal judge approved the IRS summons, and demanded Coinbase to reveal user transaction records. Soon, a Coinbase customer named Jeffrey K. Berns, who is also a lawyer, filed a motion to block the IRS’ efforts to access Coinbase users’ records. Since the IRS filed a John....