Crypto and taxes may not be a match made in heaven, but taxes seem inevitable, and the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made it clear it is going after people who don’t report. With IRS summonses to Coinbase, Kraken, Circle and Poloniex, plus other enforcement efforts, the IRS is on the hunt. The IRS sent 10,000 letters in different versions asking for compliance, but all were nudges to encourage taxpayers to be compliant. The IRS hunt for crypto has often been compared to the IRS hunt for foreign accounts more than a decade ago. Unfortunately, it is not …

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has hired a former United States Internal Revenue Service agent to head its new intelligence division, a strong indication that the company is looking to bolster its compliance resources. Tigran Gambaryan joins Binance as vice president of global intelligence and investigations, the company announced Thursday. Binance is Gambaryan’s first private-sector employer since he joined the IRS as a special agent in September 2011. During his time at the IRS, Gambaryan investigated cases involving national security, terrorism financing, tax evasion and identity theft. He was also involved in the investigation of Silk Road, a dark web marketplace that …

The United States Internal Revenue Service continues to propose new tax reforms to regulate the crypto investments in the U.S., with the latest notice sharing tax obligations for the marijuana industry. The notice, signed by IRS Small Business/Self-Employed Division Commissioner De Lon Harris, reflects the priorities of the United States federal agency to ensure cryptocurrency tax compliance among local businesses that grow, distribute and sell cannabis. Commissioner Harris said that the use of cryptocurrencies in the cannabis industry is one of the top enforcement priorities of the IRS. The statement coincides with the recent proposal by the Senate lawmakers from …

In her monthly Expert Take column, Selva Ozelli, an international tax attorney and CPA, covers the intersection between emerging technologies and sustainability, and provides the latest developments around taxes, AML/CFT regulations and legal issues affecting crypto and blockchain. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is holding its 76th annual meeting between Sept. 14 and 30 to bring countries together at a critical time for marshaling collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis, which has worsened the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Related: How will blockchain technology help fight climate change? Experts answer Ahead of the UNGA meeting, the latest report released …

The latest news has left the decentralized finance community in a collective fetal position. Responding to the threat of increased regulatory oversight, leading decentralized exchange Uniswap recently restricted the trading of certain tokens. Earlier in July, Dan M. Berkovitz, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said that DeFi derivatives platforms might contravene the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA): “Not only do I think that unlicensed DeFi markets for derivative instruments are a bad idea, but I also do not see how they are legal under the CEA.” Most worrisome of all is the initial version of the United States …

Former United States Treasury Criminal Investigator Greg Monahan joined major cryptocurrency exchange Binance to oversee the company’s international Anti-Money Laundering (AML) efforts, the exchange announced on Wednesday. Before replacing Karen Leong as the global money laundering reporting officer at Binance, Monahan worked for the U.S. Treasury for almost 20 years as a member of the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation unit. He was mainly responsible for tax, money laundering and other related financial crime investigations. He also held a brief position at Deloitte as a senior manager, according to his professional profile. Reminding previous efforts of the exchange to support …

United States Senators have cast their votes, and the contentious HR 3684 infrastructure bill cleared in the upper Congress chamber. Now, the gigantic document of over 2,700 pages and amounting to almost $1 trillion is heading to the House of Representatives, including the provisions expanding the definition of a cryptocurrency broker, designed to beef up crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) tax compliance. The $1 trillion can’t come out of thin air, right? While the bill in effect simply follows Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines, doomsayers are already declaring the end is nigh, haunted by visions of the dreaded Internal …

Way back in 2014, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruled that cryptocurrency is property in Notice 2014-21. That classification as property has some big tax consequences accentuated by wild price swings. Buying and selling crypto can trigger gain or loss and be taxable. Yes, buying something using crypto — a house, a car, a new suit — can trigger taxes. Even paying taxes in crypto can trigger taxes. If you owe $5,000 in taxes, you could pay the $5,000 in dollars. However, if you pay with $5,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC), as long as the crypto is worth …

The United States-based cryptocurrency tax software developer TaxBit is reportedly looking for new funding at a valuation of $1 billion or more, which would make it a unicorn startup. According to Bloomberg, people with knowledge of the matter said TaxBit is in talks to raise capital, but the terms have yet to be finalized. TaxBit declined to comment on the reports. TaxBit is a Salt Lake City, Utah-based startup founded in 2018 specializing in crypto-related tax processes for consumers and businesses. Developed by a group of CPAs, tax attorneys and software developers, the solution enables users to track the tax …

The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stretches the tax rules to fit its cryptocurrency agenda. At no time in tax history has pure creation been a taxable event. Yet, the IRS seeks to tax new tokens as income at the time they are created. This is an infringement on traditional tax principles and problematic for several reasons. In 2014, the IRS stated in an FAQ within IRS Notice 2014-21 that mining activities would result in taxable gross income. It is important to note that IRS notices are mere guidances and are not the law. The IRS concluded that mining …

About 2,000 years ago during its Han dynasty, China made peace with some of the nomadic people of Central Asia who continuously ransacked Silk Road traders for an easy payday. It did so in order to fully establish the Silk Road trade route, which stretched from China to Europe, and to secure a great source of wealth from trading in luxury goods. Now, as trade increasingly has shifted to the digital realm during the global COVID-19 pandemic, cyberattackers are taking advantage of organizations’ lax cybersecurity measures. They are using ransomware to lock these organizations’ data with encryption until a ransom …

Software antivirus pioneer John McAfee has told his 1 million Twitter followers that his entire crypto fortune is gone — although he concedes not everyone will believe he’s telling the truth. The McAfee antivirus founder has been behind bars in Spain since October 2020 — when he was arrested for tax evasion — but that hasn’t stopped him from posting on Twitter on a near-daily basis. The 75-year-old tweeted earlier today that “I have nothing. Yet, I regret nothing,” and noted that: “The US believes I have hidden crypto. I wish I did but it has dissolved through the many …