Coinbase Customer Files Motion to Block IRS Acesss of Bitcoin Users’ Info
Editor’s Note: The article’s headline and content has been amended to note that the motion was filed by a customer of Coinbase and not the exchange, as reported erroneously, earlier. The misinformation is regretted. A customer from bitcoin exchange Coinbase has filed a motion [PDF] in a San Francisco federal court to block the Internal Revenue Service from accessing transaction records of bitcoin users. The IRS filed a civil petition on November 17, targeting transaction records of bitcoiners registered with the exchange between January 2013 and December 2015. On December 1, a federal....
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In an expected development, bitcoin exchange Coinbase has filed a motion [PDF] in a San Francisco federal court to block the Internal Revenue Service from accessing transaction records of bitcoin users. The IRS filed a civil petition on November 17, targeting transaction records of bitcoiners registered with the exchange between January 2013 and December 2015. On December 1, a federal judge approved the IRS summons demanding Coinbase to reveal the transaction records. An excerpt from the introduction of the motion filed by Coinbase in response to the IRS request reads: [B]ased on three....
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.....
Coinbase, which faces an IRS subpoena to disclose records on all of its U.S. customers, wants customers to know that while the company has chosen to fight the IRS on releasing customer information, it remains committed to complying with tax reporting requirements. Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO and co-founder, clarified the company’s position in a recent Medium post in which he appealed to the IRS to work with Coinbase and suggested a tax reporting form that Charles Schwab and Fidelity use might be a solution. On December 1, a federal judge approved an IRS summons and demanded Coinbase....
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 lawyer fighting a one-man battle against the IRS on behalf of thousands of Coinbase customers has not been swayed by the tax agency's efforts to appease him. Instead of pacifying Coinbase user Jeffrey Berns, the IRS’s change of tack seems to have made him more determined to carry on the fight. In response to a motion to intervene on behalf of Coinbase users filed by Berns via his law firm, Berns Weiss, the IRS yesterday submitted its own amendment to its request for the personal information of thousands of the firm's customers. Since Berns had revealed himself as a Coinbase user in his....