Do The IRS Crypto Tax Letters Violate Taxpayer Rights?
This article originally appeared in our Weekly Bits newsletter. If you want our news and analysis before anyone else, make sure you subscribe now! Earlier this week, crypto tax preparation service CoinTracker shared news that its users were receiving letters from the Internal Revenue Service warning them that they may have misreported their crypto transactions to the agency. The post included comments from r/Bitcoin indicating that crypto holders were receiving IRS Letters 6173, 6174 and 6174-A. The agency had sent out 10,000 of these letters last summer as well. As in 2019, Letters 6174....
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A lack of tax guidance on bitcoin is leading to confusion and misperceptions among US businesses and could even encourage tax avoidance, warned a Treasury-appointed spokesperson today. Nina Olson, the Taxpayer Advocate, put pressure on the IRS in her annual report to U. S. Congress. Olson is the head of the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organization within the IRS that represents taxpayers. Olson singled out a lack of IRS guidance around bitcoin and other virtual currencies as a particular issue of concern in this year's report, listing it in the "most serious problems"....
Assault on the Internal Revenue Service continues. Now it is Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate. In annual report for 2013, presented to Congress she states that to this moment IRS was not able to anyhow clear the rules regarding Bitcoin with its lightning fast spread across the international market and how it must be treated according to the tax laws. Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), which Olson is a head of, takes upon the roles of unbiased spectator, advisor and taxpayers’ representative for IRS due to TAS being an independent institution within it. That way all the taxpayers’....
In a report coming from the Switzerland TV channel, Tele Zueri says visitors of the region’s largest strip club are being blackmailed. It’s said that roughly 50-60 people who frequented the Globe in Schwerzenbach, near Zurich received extortion letters asking for $2,000 in Bitcoin. Hackers using pictures of patrons that visited the Swiss strip are being used against them. The nightclub’s manager Fritz Mueller spoke with NBC News about the situation saying the letters stated that they would “destroy” people’s lives. The Swiss TV channel Tele Zueri says the letters are asking for the....
Spanish authorities are enforcing their tough stance on the cryptocurrency industry, and the national tax agency seems to be taking it very seriously. Now, the Hacienda issued 14,800 warning letters to Spaniards under their watch for allegedly having failed or need to declare crypto holdings. Fines Could Be ‘Over $5,900’ if a Crypto Holder Fails to Declare Mandatory Tax Filings According to Telemadrid, Spain’s tax agency was clear on making cryptos taxable, and notifications have already arrived to their correspondent receivers. Spanish crypto holders should declare their....
In 1999, the Chicago economist Milton Friedman predicted the rise of bitcoin as a currency. He told an interviewer, “The Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government. The one thing that is missing, but will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash: a method by which on the Internet you can transfer funds from an A to....