Big Brother sets sights on bitcoin: Boom Bust digs into latest move by IRS to root out unreported crypto earnings
The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is launching a new investigation named “Operation Hidden Treasure,” to uncover unreported crypto-related income and to fight cryptocurrency fraud.
RT’s Boom Bust is joined by the program co-host Ben Swann to explore what the move may mean for the future of digital currencies, how this crackdown will be carried out and who the revenue agency will focus on.
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The measure is going to really hit early adopters of digital currencies and people who have tried to live within the crypto ecosystem without coming out, according to the journalist. Swann added that it remained a big question what and who Operation Hidden Treasure is focused on.
“Anyone who had crypto, converted that into fiat dollar and didn’t pay taxes on it, or people who exchanged one token for another token, or people who move tokens out of exchange and into a cloud storage wallet,” he says.
“It’s not billionaires like Elon Musk or Mark Cuban who are affected by this, it’s the everyday people who have made cryptocurrency successful who will be targeted by the IRS,” he adds.
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