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IRS Commissioner Charles Retting has repeatedly asked lawmakers for more power to improve tax compliance in the cryptocurrency industry, where many market participants are unaware of their obligations or are outright cheating.
Though industry officials vow to fight the proposals, they’ll
likely face an uphill battle. The plan is headed for a quick vote in the
Senate, and lawmakers will be loath to blow a hole in the infrastructure
proposal after struggling for weeks over how to defray its cost of the plan.
The fact that few lawmakers understand cryptocurrencies and
their relationship to taxes means that any lobbying effort will require a major
educational campaign. Congress’s most expert member on the issue, Sen. Rob
Portman (ROhio), happens to be one of the main authors of the broader
infrastructure package. Click here for more information: Latest Bitcoin News Stories and Headlines
Portman spokesperson Drew Nirenberg said in a statement:
“This legislative language does not redefine digital assets or cryptocurrency
as a ‘security’ for tax purposes, impugn on the privacy of individual crypto
holders or force non brokers, such as software developers and crypto miners, to
comply with IRS reporting obligations. It simply clarifies that any person or
entity acting as a broker by facilitating trades for clients and receiving cash
must comply with a standard information reporting obligation.”
Much of the proposal is designed to replicate the reporting
regime imposed when people sell stocks in companies like Apple or Ford. Brokers
would be required to report people’s so called basis, or the price at which they
bought cryptocurrencies, as well as their gross proceeds which would make
calculating their tax bills much easier.
Studies have long shown that when people know someone else
is independently reporting their income to the IRS, they are far less likely to
skirt tax obligations. Lawmakers also want to include anti money laundering
provisions sought by the Treasury Department that would require transactions
worth more than $10,000 to be reported to the government.
Behind the scenes, lawmakers have debated language that
would expand the definition of broker to include decentralized exchanges,
without traditional middle men, and peer to peer transactions, though some say
the language of the proposal is broad enough to sweep in others like
cryptocurrency miners.
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