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The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is considering the introduction of a box on the first page of the 2020 tax returns asking contributors specifically if they have sold, received, sent, exchanged or acquired any financial interest in any virtual currency during the financial year in question, that taxpayers must answer unequivocally by ticking either the “Yes” or “No” box.
The question, which first appeared on the 2019 return but in a section not all taxpayers had to answer, now moves to a place of full prominence, right at the beginning, under the fields for name and address. The question has a clear purpose: in addition to investigating the extent of the use of cryptomonies among, it aims to make it easier for the IRS to win cases against taxpayers who have not declared their cryptomoney assets, who will no longer be able to argue that they were unaware of the obligation to pay taxes on them. In 2009, the IRS used that same strategy to curb deposits in offshore accounts, which has made possible the regularization of more than $12 billion since.
The measures taken by the IRS coincide with other initiatives in other parts of the world that aim to make crypto-currencies increasingly official: China’s strategy, prepared ahead of the interest bitcoins about future cryptocurrencies
