Category: Tax Cases

Recent Coinbase Communications between Congress and the Internal Revenue Service on the John Doe Summons

INTRODUCTION:

On May 17, 2017, less than 2 months ago, powerful members of the U.S. Congress sent a letter to John Koskinen, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, requesting information about the IRS’s digital currency strategy as well as recent events surrounding the IRS’s summons to Coinbase, a digital asset exchange company.

The three Congressional members drafting this letter were:

1. Orin G. Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance; 2. Kevin Brady, Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means; and 3. Vern Buchanan, Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND NOTED BY CONGRESSIONAL CHAIRMANS:

In March 2014, the IRS began working to clarify tax issues related t

Could this happen to Coinbase?

On February 3, 2017, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter ruled that Google must provide emails stored overseas to the FBI for their domestic fraud investigation, despite an earlier decision finding no such obligation for Microsoft. The ruling was made in Philadelphia that transferring emails from a

The Beginning: Litigation of Coinbase

THE BEGINNING: LITIGATION OF COINBASE. PART I. On November 17, 2016 the formal litigation commenced between the San Francisco virtual currency corporation, Coinbase, by an administrative “John Doe” summons to Coinbase The attorneys for the Government are very heavy in experience for complex liti

Update of Bitcoin Litigation

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is continuing to develop and solidify its encompassing strategy for an individual’s compliance when using virtual currencies. At this point, the IRS has now defined virtual currencies as both a property and a currency.

As the IRS gains more depth and a clearing understanding of virtual currencies, it will identify compliance problems encountered in examinations of individual’s tax returns where virtual currencies exist.

Since the Government Accounting Office, GAO, issued its report on virtual currencies three years ago, the IRS’s position on virtual currency as a tax compliance risk requiring additional oversight has remained relatively unchanged and falls within several U.S. Governmental acts, including the Bank Secrecy Act, (BSA)

Bernard Kramer pleaded guilty

On August 19, 2014, Bernard Kramer pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to conspiracy to defraud the United States and filing a false income tax return relating to his concealment of at least $1.1 million in bank accounts in Switzerland and Israel. For 23 years, Kramer had an undeclar

Mizrahi Bank Client Sentenced for Filing False Tax Return

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, August 4, 2014 Mizrahi Bank Client Sentenced for Filing False Tax Return California Resident the Latest in Series of Defendants Prosecuted for Concealing Accounts at Israeli Banks

A Beverly Hills, California man was sentenced today in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to serve six months in prison and one year of home confinement for filing a false federal income tax return for tax year 2007, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced.

According to court documents, Monajem Hakimijoo aka Manny Hakimi, a U.S. citizen, and his brother maintained an undeclared bank account at Mizrahi Bank in Israel in the name of Kalamar Enterprises, a Turks and Ca