The IRS requested Coinbase, a popular digital currency exchange based in San Francisco, in November 2016 for data on all of its users who bought Bitcoin from 2013 to 2015. The IRS wanted to find out traders who had evaded cryptocurrency taxes. Coinbase tried its best to fight the summons but it ultimately had to comply when a San Francisco court ruled in November 2017 that it had to hand over identifying records on more than 13,000 users to the IRS. It’s going to do that now.
Coinbase has now informed all affected customers via email that it’s going to comply with this court order and provide the IRS with data on more than 13,000 of its users within 21 days.
A court in San Francisco ruled in November last year that Coinbase has to provide the IRS with identifying records for all of its users that completed digital currency transactions of more than $20,000 through their accounts in one single year between 2013 and 2015. The data that it’s going to provide includes names, dates of birth, taxpayer IDs, addresses, and transaction records from 2013-2015.
The digital currency exchange also mentions on its website that “Coinbase fought this summons in court in an effort to protect its customers, and the industry as a whole, from unwarranted intrusions from the government.” However, those efforts have been in vain and the IRS will get the data now. What it chooses to do with it is another matter entirely.
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