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 (NASDAQ:COIN), 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 clear if there will ever be a crypto amnesty program emulating the offshore voluntary disclosure programs the IRS formulated for offshore accounts.
Robert W. Wood is a tax lawyer representing clients worldwide from the office of Wood LLP in San Francisco, where he is a managing partner. He is the author of numerous tax books and frequently writes about taxes for Forbes, Tax Notes and other publications.