Blockchain Association Executive Director Kristin Smith is hoping that the IRS are “reasonable people” when it comes to crypto taxes.

On November 15, 2021, President Joe Biden signed in a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – which created a new tax rule: one that redefines a “broker” as “any person who is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person.” 

These rules were supposed to be effective in the 2023 tax filing year, in accordance with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. 

Soon after, the crypto industry was in a slight panic. They worried that under this new definition of “broker” – which is subject to different tax conditions compared to the usual citizen – would also include miners, developers, stakers, and other crypto industry people who don’t have the traditional sort of customer relationship in facilitating transactions.

If the term “broker” is applied in a sweeping fashion, everyone in the crypto industry who files taxes in the US would be subject to providing tax information from whomever they have facilitated in transactions with: meaning that there’s a lot of extra legwork to be done in filing taxes.

Tax experts were fairly lost at the time, saying that there wouldn’t be much the crypto industry can do until the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issues out proper guidelines to apply these “broker” rules to the crypto industry. 

Two years have passed since, and Blockchain Association Executive Director Kristin Smith is hopeful that the IRS would cook up something for this year.

“We do expect the IRS to take this up this year,” said Smith, adding “I do think the IRS are reasonable people. Is that gonna get me in trouble for saying that?”

The Blockchain Association hopes that the IRS will focus on centralised exchanges in applying the “broker” tax rule, where the IRS requires CEXs to collect tax information from their customers. 

“Our hope is that they focus on that, because it’s obviously going to be very difficult if they start [with] miners and validators and software providers, who help with the operation of a transaction but don’t actually take control of customer funds,” Smith said. “It will be impossible for them to comply.”

Infrastructure plan criticism

Back when the $1.2 trillion bipartisan plan was introduced in 2021, Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Pat Toomey (R-PA) proposed an amendment to change the language so that specifically miners, developers, and network validators were not included under the blanket “broker” definition.

The amendment proposal was made as the provision was “too broad and vague,” and had the backing of Coinbase, Block, Inc. (formerly Square), Ribbit Capital, Coin Center, and the Blockchain Association itself.

In response to the original provision, Coinbase published an official statement, saying crypto “should not be subject to potentially devastating legislation without public participation and public comment.” “We support sensible reporting requirements that are consistent with those that apply to traditional financial services,” the exchange wrote.

However, the amendment failed to get passed. It didn’t get enough votes and now, a provision is put in place, one that is called by Coinbase “a massive increase in financial surveillance.”

Smith is hoping now that the IRS would implement the rule as Senators Lummis, Wyden, and Toomey wrote, after almost 2 years of wait time. Smith predicts that several rounds of proposals to implement from the IRS would happen, followed by invitations for the industry and tax professionals to comment, in order for any tax rules to be finalised.

According to the Blockchain Association, cryptocurrencies are a “sizable generator of US tax revenue”, and it is still unclear as to how crypto-related activities should be taxed, and for how much. 

If the IRS does not come through with adequate language for tax compliance in crypto, there would be a potential significant loss in revenue for the US government, in addition to “frustrating confusion for taxpayers who want to make sure they pay what they owe.”

Recently, the US has been delaying the release of crypto tax reporting rules due to the difficulty in defining what a “broker” is. The IRS has been tossing and turning on developing what a standard definition of a “cryptocurrency broker” is, or have established nor created standard forms for such firms to use in filing tax reports.

In a statement by the US Treasury Department made on December 23, 2022, the government entity intends to establish such rules soon, where after “careful consideration of all public comments received and all testimony at the public hearing, final regulations will be published.”

As these rules are being drafted up, brokers wouldn’t be required to comply with the new crypto tax provisions, which includes reporting and issuing additional information, and filing returns with the IRS on transfers on digital assets. However, taxpayers (customers of such brokers) would still be required to comply with crypto tax provisions.