“Very Serious” Compliance Issues Plague Cryptocurrency: Desmond

The IRS’s top attorney said the agency’s biggest problem with cryptocurrency is that people are just flat out not reporting their assets.

• “We see a very serious compliance problem,” IRS Chief Counsel Michael Desmond said Oct. 4 in a surprise appearance at a panel during an American Bar Association tax section meeting in San Francisco.
• The problem isn’t that people are trying to disclose their cryptocurrency assets but are struggling with tough issues, such as determining basis, he said. Basis is the amount that someone paid for an asset and is needed to calculate capital gain or ...