Instead of requiring bitcoin company Coinbase to submit all of its records, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is now scaling down its investigation to only include transactions worth $20,000 or more.
The Recorder first reported IRS’s plan to modify its summons, quoting a lawyer from the Department of Justice Tax Division who told a court judge last week that the tax agency is planning to scale down “its request for information from San Francisco-based bitcoin exchange.”
A court filing, titled “Notice of Narrowed Request for Enforcement,” hashed out the new scope of IRS’s request for the Coinbase accounts, stating: “the United States seeks information for users with at least the equivalent of $20,000 in any one transaction type (buy, sell, send, or receive) in any one year during the 2013-15 period.”
The amended summons requests are now limited to name, address, tax identification number, date of birth, account opening records, copies of passport or driver’s license, all wallet addresses as well as the customer’s public keys for all of his or her accounts, wallets or vaults.
It also eliminated requests for power of attorney letters, and limits request for “correspondence between Coinbase and the covered user or any third party with access to the account/wallet/vault pertaining to the account/wallet/vault opening, closing or transaction activity.”
Last year, the California district court allowed IRS to require Coinbase to submit records of all transactions that took place from 2013 to 2015, but the bitcoin company took the fight to block the summons back to court, where it was joined by two anonymous customers. Several lawmakers also called the attention of IRS Commissioner Josh Koskinen, telling him that the tax agency may have been overstepping its powers in the probe into possible tax fraud committed by U.S. residents who engaged in business with or through the bitcoin exchange.
Bitcoin traded at $2,332.09 per coin on Wednesday afternoon.
