IRS Sees Crypto Seizures Totalling Billions of Dollars In 2022

Aniket Jain 2021-11-20 10:11

The United States Internal Revenue Service seized a whopping about $3.5 billion worth of cryptocurrencies this fiscal year. Interestingly this is about 93% of the figure that the tax department seized and considering the moderate number of users involved in crypto, this figure is indeed huge.

The IRS published a report on Thursday, showcasing this huge amount. IRS officials also commented how these values could increase in the coming years due to the increasing numbers of tax fraud, and other crimes.

IRS on Crypto

“I expect a trend of crypto seizures to continue as we move forward into fiscal year ‘22,” IRS Criminal Investigation Chief Jim Lee said on a call with reporters. “We’re seeing crypto involved in a number of our crimes as we move forward.”

Congress recently granted the governing body more power to surveil crypto in the infrastructure package. United States President Joe Biden signed onto this law last Monday. The law will require crypto investors and brokers to notify the IRS about any transactions. This attempt is made to monitor tax audits on crypto and to provide more visibility of cryptocurrencies to the tax authorities.

It is also reported that the agency could benefit from the additional $80 million that the Democrats offered in favour of Biden’s Built Back Better plan. Which was supposed to get its votes on Thursday. Lee pointed out that this money would desperately be needed by his department. Owing to such a huge number of audits the IRS needs to hire more employees. An increased number of employees would also help the agency to track and cover crimes better. A measure that is especially needed for the crypto industry owing to its rising rates of malpractice within the industry and crimes like fraud, identity theft etc.

Conclusion

The given policies are yet another try by the U.S government to take down the crypto market and give its unregulated nature some form of definition for better functioning.

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