Court Approves IRS’ John Doe Summons against Coinbase
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....
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....
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....
The recent John Doe summons developments indicate that the IRS is seriously interested in crypto — better to report than to be audited. The United States Internal Revenue Service has been hunting crypto vigorously for more than five years now, and the pace is getting faster. A couple of decades ago, the IRS was after offshore accounts, and that effort was among the most successful in the IRS’ history. Now, it’s crypto the IRS is after, and there’s no suggestion that the IRS intends to fail. The IRS wants crypto tax data in a big way, from asking about crypto on each tax return to its....
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.....
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....