Court Rejects Crypto User’s Effort to Shield Records From IRS

A New Hampshire federal court dismissed a cryptocurrency user’s constitutional challenge to the IRS’s seizure of his records without prior notice.

It was the second dismissal of plaintiff James Harper’s case, after the US District Court for New Hampshire first dismissed his suit in 2021 but was overruled by the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit the following year. The new ruling addressed arguments from the Internal Revenue Service that weren’t addressed in 2021.

Harper has alleged the IRS records grab using a John Doe summons—which targets the records of unnamed taxpayers—violated his right to privacy under the ...