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The Internal Earnings Service has fired its loudest warning shots yet throughout the bows of bitcoin financiers. In late July, the agency began sending out letters to more than 10,000 cryptocurrency holders, cautioning that they might have broken federal tax laws. This should not have actually come as a surprise to anybody, but it's definitely creating headaches for taxpayers and tax experts who have not been sweating the details on cryptocurrency for the last few years.
The problem is, the days of getting a pass by claiming lack of knowledge on the finer points of cryptocurrency tax compliance have actually concerned an end. Initially, confusion about how to handle the tax side of virtual currency was understandable. At Full Article of 2013, right when the cryptocurrency hype cycle was beginning and bitcoin was valued at roughly $650, significant banks, tech companies and accounting firms were convening market summits to determine whether cryptocurrency would be taxed as a capital possession, like a stock or a product, and thus based on capital gains rates, or as a fiat currency, such as dollars, euros and yen, for which gains are normally taxed as ordinary income.

What followed was a five-year drumbeat of announcements and actions that made it clear the internal revenue service was getting serious about crypto. In November of 2016, the firm filed a John Doe summons to the bitcoin trading platform Coinbase, requesting for names and other details of everyone who is trading bitcoin.
It should have been clear already that what was once the Wild West was now being thoroughly monitored. Still, the IRS caution letters issued last month caught numerous recipients off guard. The factor, of course, is that lots of people even tax professionals still do not truly understand the information of how cryptocurrency is being taxed.


For one, the price is extremely volatile. This July, the cost of bitcoin topped $12,000, which is more than three times its value in December of 2018. In order to properly determine gain or loss, anybody offering their bitcoin requires to monitor its worth the day they got it and the day they sold it, and likewise factor in different tax brackets and other variables that can impact the overall quantity owed to the internal revenue service.