Chris Sigmund

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Taxpayers should take prompt action to assess their situation, yet move carefully before making representations or filings to the IRS.

Over the past month, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has sent letters to over ten thousand taxpayers that it believes may have failed to report virtual currency transactions (primarily Bitcoin-related) or may have omitted income derived from virtual currency transactions. These letters continue to receive significant press coverage from major financial outlets and may be just the beginning of the government’s notification, collection and enforcement efforts. For example, the IRS has also recently sent notices to certain virtual currency investors informing them that the investors’ reporting does not match other records in the IRS’s possession.

Taxpayers who receive an IRS letter, receive an investor notice, or have questions about reporting their past virtual currency transactions (e.g., sales of tokens or exchanges of one token for another) should consider the following advice:…
Continue Reading You Received One of the IRS Crypto Letters—What’s Next?

Cryptocurrency owners must face death—be it their own, or that of anyone else with custody of the owner’s cryptocurrency or other digital assets. We received a stark reminder of this when the Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX recently filed court papers[1] indicating it may have lost access to nearly $200 million USD of its customers’ Bitcoin, Ether and other cryptocurrencies. The exchange claimed to have used cold wallets to store its portion of customers’ vital cryptocurrency offline. After the owner of the exchange died, however, the exchange has apparently struggled to access this cryptocurrency and related fiat deposits, and customers may forever lose their assets housed on the exchange.[2]…
Continue Reading Dying and Private Keys

The primary professional organization for accounting professionals (AICPA) recently renewed their requests to the Internal Revenue Service for U.S. virtual currency guidance on key tax issues. The IRS has not shown any willingness to publish more advice in this area, so a response to the letter may not be forthcoming. The IRS has ignored the…

 As first published on Bloomberg’s Daily Tax Report.

Key Takeaways

  • The Internal Revenue Service is obtaining significant records about virtual currency holders
  • These records not only implicate taxpayers who sold virtual currency at a profit, but also anyone who bought, sold, sent, or received virtual currency
  • Exchanges of one virtual currency for another, mining

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