The United States Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Committee on Ways and Means issued a letter to the Internal Revenue Service expressing the committee’s dissatisfaction with IRS’s lack of comprehensive guidelines.
The letter indicates that IRS continues to expand its enforcement activities but not providing a proper guidance regarding the virtual currencies.
“We, therefore, write again today to strongly urge the IRS to issue updated guidance, providing additional clarity for taxpayers seeking to better understand and comply with their tax obligations when using virtual currencies.”
IRS is working on the subject since 2014 and so far it only provided a “preliminary” guidance in 2017 but failed to produce anything tangible than that.
Lawmakers and associations are voicing their concerns regarding this matter since taxpayers are failing to comply with regulations that are being enforced without a guidance provided by the IRS.
IRS is overdoing the job of reminding taxpayers of the penalties in case they won’t comply with the preliminary guidance.
The letter clearly states the concerns of the committee: “We are concerned that the IRS is seeking to enforce that does not adequately advise taxpayers of their tax obligations when using virtual currencies.”
The committee also requests a proper response from IRS to this letter, which should include at which state IRS is in the preparation of the guidance, which topics it will cover and when it will be released. In order to ensure the issuance of the guidance, the committee will utilize the Government Accountability Office to audit this matter.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
- The voiced concerns drew the attention of the committee, which means that crypto is being widely used and mass adoption is not that far.
- The letter shows that IRS doesn’t have capable people since the guidance is in a four-year process of making.
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