British Tax Authority Demands Data From Crypto Exchanges

British Tax authority- the HM Revenue and Customers is pressuring the crypto exchanges to reveal the names and transaction histories of the customers in order to fight back the tax evaders and unpaid taxes according to newest reports that we have in the coming altcoin news today.

The letters requesting lists of customers and transaction data have knocked on the doors of about three exchanges that are doing businesses in the United Kingdom including eToro, CEX.IO and Coinbase. One of the industry insiders stated:

 “HMRC is looking to work with exchanges when it comes to finding information on people who have been buying and selling crypto. I think they will only go back a couple of years, two or three years. If they [HMRC] do only go back two or three years, I think the interesting thing here is, that the individuals who went into crypto very early on in 2012-13 will not be affected. The ones who probably made the largest gains won’t be affected; it will be the people who came in around the time crypto peaked.”

In a response to the freedom of Information Request, the British Tax Authority said it was withholding details about the demands for information since disclosing them could even further jeopardize the assessment of the tax collection.

 “These exchanges can retain information on their clients and the transactions that they have completed. These transactions may result in potential tax charges and HMRC has the power to issue notices requiring exchanges to provide this information.”

The move by the British Tax Authority is following a pattern which was set by the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other governments around the world. Last month, the IRS started sending warning letters to thousands of Americans who say that they have participated in the virtual currency transactions but never reported them properly. Also, Coinbase has tried to fight against what is known as John Doe summons which is an attempt by the government agencies to gather more information from the customers including the taxpayer ID, birth date, name and address. As noted in the latest cryptocurrency news, back in December, the Internal Revenue Service issued the summons demanding that Coinbase should produce records relating to more than 500,000 exchange customers and a court order compelled it to produce only 13,000.