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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 25 2021, @01:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the regulators-regulating dept.

Crypto payments above $10,000 would be reported to IRS under Treasury plan

The Biden administration wants businesses to report cryptocurrency transactions with values of at least $10,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.

"Cryptocurrency already poses a significant detection problem by facilitating illegal activity broadly including tax evasion," the US Treasury Department said in its proposal for implementing the tax compliance initiatives in President Biden's American Families Plan. The larger Biden plan still needs approval from Congress.

The Treasury document said that crypto reporting is one part of "the President's tax compliance initiatives that seek to close the 'tax gap'—the difference between taxes owed to the government and actually paid." The proposal calls for a $4.5 billion investment in IT to implement a new information-reporting regime that would help close that gap, which was nearly $600 billion in 2019.

US law already "requires that trades and businesses report cash payments of more than $10,000 to the federal government," the IRS website notes. This information "assists law enforcement in its anti-money laundering efforts" and "provide[s] authorities with an audit trail to investigate possible tax evasion, drug dealing, terrorist financing and other criminal activities," the IRS says. The Treasury Department said it would apply that same threshold to crypto transactions under the proposed new reporting system


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 25 2021, @01:46AM (10 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @01:46AM (#1138434)

    This $10K limit has been in place for any bank transaction for 50+ years.

    The insidious thing about that $10K limit is that it doesn't inflate - back when it was passed, $10K was roughly equivalent to $100K today.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:10AM (5 children)

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:10AM (#1138436)
      50 years ago heaps more manpower was needed for the banks to properly process the tattling on their customers, it wasn't about the amount. Think about it, the gov't wants ALL the taxes not just the big-ticket items.
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:05AM (3 children)

        by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:05AM (#1138442) Journal

        Think about it, the gov't wants ALL the taxes not just the big-ticket items.

        Of course they do.

        However, the interesting thing I see in this statement is that they have just admitted that crypto has value and can be traded as a commodity and therefore basically called it a viable currency by default.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:34AM (1 child)

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:34AM (#1138522) Homepage
          Manure is a commodity.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:57PM

            by Freeman (732) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:57PM (#1138610) Journal

            Don't knock it, it's great stuff in my garden! I shoveled a giant trailer load of it this spring. We got it for the cost of gas going to the place to pick it up and hauling it back ourselves. Certainly beat the $3 to $6 per bag at Home Depot/Lowes.

            --
            Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:40PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:40PM (#1138681)

          I doubt they're specifically interested in crypto per-se, they are interested in the fact that people trade large quantities of $US for it and they both want to tax income in $US and also track movement of $US in and out of the country.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:18AM

        by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:18AM (#1138447)

        Taxes? Considering they busted Capone for tax evasion, seems like it's another way of tracking the flow of dollar amounts large enough to exert other kinds of influence at an organized crime level.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:19AM (#1138492)

      Whatever it is, it's one rule for us and another rule for them:

      https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-230696/ [rollingstone.com]

      The banks’ laundering transactions were so brazen that the NSA probably could have spotted them from space. Breuer admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC’s Mexican branches and “deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows.”

      See also: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs [theguardian.com]

      In contrast: https://www.wired.com/2013/03/alfred-anaya/ [wired.com]

      Alfred Anaya was a genius at installing traps — secret compartments in cars that can hide everything from weed to jewelry to guns. And if they were used to smuggle drugs without his knowledge, he figured, that wasn't his problem. He was wrong.

    • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:46AM (2 children)

      by fakefuck39 (6620) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:46AM (#1138496)

      You're correct, however your strawman pretends nothing else has changed in the last 50+ years either. That long ago, opening a bank account was a big in person type of thing. Now, Given a couple of hours I can open 10 from my phone, and sprinkle 10k into each of them in another hour from a hundred bitcoin wallets.

      So yes, the limit has not changed, because the amount of value tracked has changed and been lowered to fit the modern world, where it's dirt easy to make many transactions.

      This speaks nothing of course of whether that should be tracked in the first place, but that's a separate topic all together. My answer there is - if you don't want the government insurance on your cash, if you don't want it to be tracked, don't use the bank, which is a government-backed entity. No one's forcing you to keep your money with a bank.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:48PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:48PM (#1138684)

        The amount of value tracked has changed and been lowered invading privacy of an exponentially larger segment of the population as it goes down.

        The number of people who would move more than $10K for anything but a house purchase in 1970 was less than 5% of the population.

        Anybody who isn't living hand to mouth today can stroke a check for $15K to buy a used car without thinking much about it at all - easily 50% of U.S. households.

        Hell, a family of four just got $5600 stimulus money in a lump sum to "tide them through the tough quarter."

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:39PM (#1138752)

        Wow, you must have just learned a new word "strawman". Congratulations. Too bad you're too fucking stupid to know what it actually means.

        The real reason the limit has been changed, and what the OP was talking about and that you're way too dense to understand, is that the government ultimately wants to be able to track any transaction. While changing the law can be difficult and result in pushback, they can play the long game and do nothing and let inflation expand the scope of what's currently in the books. Which is exactly what is happening.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:51AM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:51AM (#1138439)

    Mid-2019, they demanded that Amazon and eBay [cnbc.com] collect sales taxes on behalf of all sellers in/outside California. Prior to that you had to voluntarily report untaxed purchases that were used in California ("Use tax"). I bet some other states did the same thing.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:54AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:54AM (#1138441)

    Some time back there was a comment that, starting in 2022, payment processors like PayPal will have to issue 1099-MISC income statements whenever an account receives more than $500 in payments during the year (from all sources combined). There may be some exceptions like money transferred between family and friends?

    Has anyone seen an update to that story?

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:48AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:48AM (#1138462)

    This is only relevant if you live in the United States and care what the IRS thinks

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:14PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:14PM (#1138675)

      Exactly. Fuck the IRS. Only idiots, cowards, and traitors pay the federal income tax.

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:52AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:52AM (#1138463)

    Inquiring minds want to know who stabbed him in the back and how

    C'mon, nothing to be ashamed of, it was a "business decision", don't be shy

    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:04AM (#1138489)

      Who cares?

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:37AM (1 child)

      by fakefuck39 (6620) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:37AM (#1138495)

      What happened to your pills that keep the autism under control? Have you looked in your cum-sock? Nothing to be ashamed of - you have a crippling disability that doesn't let you function in a normal society, and we have pills to keep you from going crazy and slitting your throat.

      It was much more fun when you were spamming every post with little songs about some neck-tire slashdot retard, or trying to get people to install your little hosts file perl script. Find your pills buddy. Because if you don't, that razor to the neck - so inviting, isn't it? that fat pulsing sweaty vein - just asking for a little jibby-jab. And we'll so miss our hyper-focused ugly little clown. I can smell the unshowered BO just from seeing the text you type.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:43PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:43PM (#1138755)

        You should listen to this guy. The pills do work. And you can also see here what happens when he forgets to take his medicine.

  • (Score: 2) by Socrastotle on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:58AM (1 child)

    by Socrastotle (13446) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:58AM (#1138465) Journal

    This [archive.org] is an archive of coinmarketcap for 2019. At the end of 2019 the entire market cap of all cryptos was $193 billion. One government claims they're owed taxes of $600 billion on that.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Tuesday May 25 2021, @05:15AM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @05:15AM (#1138467) Journal

      You should work on your reading comprehension. What they claim is that in total, they receive $600 billion less taxes than they should. Obviously using crypto currency is not the only way to avoid taxes.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:41AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:41AM (#1138523)

    You want some of my gains? Fine. I'm okay with that. It's practically pennies, but my taxes help pay for the roads I drive on, the clean air and water I breathe and drink, the mom up the street who needs food stamps, etc.

    Just make it ultra simple and take it out of my actual net gains when I exchange it for fiat, and I'll happily pay my fair share. In other words, you can shitcan the complicated forms and 50000 pages of tax law, and stuff your audits, after-the-fact bills, fines, late fees, etc. up your ass.

    This is 2021, and this all goes through computers anyway. It's easy for computers to calculate just how much money I actually made, so this shit should be happening in realtime. You don't need me for any part of that process, apart from me providing approval to let it happen (one assumes that would be in perpetuity under the financial institutions' ToS).

    You already know who I am, where I'm trading, all of my account details, and how much money is going in and out of my bank. Charge me your 15% (or whatever the capital gains tax rate is now), when and only when the money leaves the exchange (except that if it's just going to a crypto wallet, it ain't yours to mess with), and then only against the gains relative to what I started with.

    If I put $500 on an exchange and start trading back and forth, and at the end of the month I only net an extra $10, and send it all back to the bank out of frustration, I guess sucks to be you, you only get $1.50. If on the other hand I leave it all online, and by some miracle or insane stroke of luck, I walk away a millionaire in a few months, fine, take your $150k when the money hits the bank. You get paid, I'm still rich, and no one gets fined or whatever. Win-win.

    Either way, just fucking DO it and leave me alone!

    • (Score: 2) by Taxi Dudinous on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:25PM

      by Taxi Dudinous (8690) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:25PM (#1138574)

      Holy crap! It's my accountant. :^)

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:27PM (#1138575)

      The tax law is for the benefit of those with accountants and lawyers, not for responsibly civic-minded people who actually pay taxes. You will never see common sense in the taxation unless that situation changes, because the foxes are running the chicken farm.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:27PM (#1138679)

      Except fed taxes don't go to anything good. They go to reward parasites, move non-whites into white neighborhoods, feed and raise non-whites, import non-whites into the country, fund unjust wars, fund abortion (i'm not going to stop your whore ass from killing your own babies, but i'm not going to pay for it either) and the list goes on and on. The federal reserve and the treasury are run by Talmudic Jew (Jewish supremacists) parasites that use the money to destroy the country and the White Race. They are lucky they are not all burned alive at their desks.

  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:12PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:12PM (#1138594)

    I'm sure your friendly Internet drug dealer's going to file the necessary IRS paperwork when you buy some Oxycontin online. And the nice man who sells you your child porn will keep detailed records for future audits. Get this through your thick skull dumb government: cryptocurrency was designed to be untraceable so it could be used for criminal activities. It has no real-world purpose apart from keeping your grubby paws off free citizens' assets.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:54PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:54PM (#1138608)

      If you think Bitcoin transactions are anonymous, you are in for a nasty surprise. Monero may be. Everything else, no. It's a blockchain with all transactions out in the open for analysis. There is literally nothing private about it.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @05:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @05:16PM (#1138643)

        That's why I used your street address when I signed up.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:43PM (1 child)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:43PM (#1138682)

      Get this through your thick skull dumb AC: cryptocurrency was designed to be permanently traceable with irrefutable transactions so it cannot be double spent.

      The fact that the average criminal can't see how cryptocurrency is traceable says more about average criminal IQ than it does anything else.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday May 27 2021, @10:43PM

        by edIII (791) on Thursday May 27 2021, @10:43PM (#1139470)

        Traceable to where? What does that mean? I can make myself appear anywhere in the world at will. Criminals with the right tech and know how can use a compromised HVAC system in the EU as an exit point for their traffic.

        Which country does the blockchain reside in again? Traceable in cyberspace and meatspace are two different things.

        The traceable parts are actually when you try to use the currency with a real business in meatspace. That only traces the last person to have the "coin", not all people who have ever held the "coin". Which also assumes that the person didn't exchange the online currency with a a real world currency beforehand.

        It's at these exchange points where some level of tracking can be done. Nobody gives a shit about the full transaction record in cyberspace except the Intelligence Communities seeking power. The "Tax Man" only cares when it's converted into something real. That will only be when the currency is "domesticated".

        Which brings up the reason why this is completely and totally pointless. Anybody that has money knows how to keep it without paying taxes, and how to domesticate it without risking taxation. You set up a foreign corporation in some place like the Isle of Mann and then conduct business with it. All of that money is not taxable until you attempt to bring it into the US. I had somebody explain to me how you domesticate it without paying anything. It was a real cute way of receiving tax free insurance payments or something, and off a debit card to. So he literally walked up to any ATM in the US and withdrew the foreign funds.

        Even if you don't do that, there are ways for foreign corporations to invest in the US. In other words, a plethora of methods to evade taxes.

        The $10,000 limit just means a whole lot of $9,999 transactions.

        Do you know how many gamblers in Las Vegas get taxed on their winnings? Just the stupid ones. If you win $300,000 on the table games and don't want to create a tax situation you just take it into the poker room. They will hold your chips there indefinitely. Have a buddy go to the cages every couple of hours for a few days, and viola!, you're withdrawing money tax free $4500 at a time.

        You want a real untraceable transaction? A bunch of dudes at a 500/1000 Texas Holdem no limit table where somebody deliberately loses to another. Pot worth a little over a million. All handled and secured by the Las Vegas casinos, and you can chip out all day just beneath the limit.

        This won't affect criminals or your higher level white collar "businessmen". Just the small time people.

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
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