Crypto John Doe Summons

On September 21, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the IRS’s ex-parte motion for leave to serve a John Doe summons to M.Y. Safra Bank after the IRS’s investigation into digital asset trading platform SFOX. The court’s order requires M.Y. Safra Bank to produce records on U.S. customers of SFOX who may owe tax on unreported cryptocurrency transactions. This follows similar IRS’s John Doe summonses against Coinbase, Inc., Circle Internet Financial, and Payward Ventures, Inc. d/b/a Kraken.

John Doe summonses are a powerful tool for the government to find unreported and underreported income from digital asset transactions. After the United States District Court for the Northern District of California permitted the IRS to serve a John Doe summons on Coinbase, Inc. the IRS sent notification letters to more than 10,000 taxpayers, advising them to file amended returns and pay back taxes. The IRS said those notifications resulted in nearly $17.6 million in assessments against taxpayers. The M.Y. Safra Bank John Doe summons is the latest attack by the IRS to find taxpayers that have unreported or underreported income from cryptocurrency transactions.

M.Y. Safra Bank John Doe Summons

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