Late on November 5, 2021, the House passed (228-206) H.R. 3684, INVEST in America – the infrastructure bill that has received a lot of attention this year. It already passed in the Senate on August 10 (69-30).

One of the few tax items here and added for tax gap concerns is to expand the definition of broker under §6045 to require additional reporting for certain digital asset transactions. A few observations:

1. There are much bigger tax gap concerns than misreporting or non-reporting of digital asset transactions such as underreporting and non-reporting by some cash businesses.

2. The text added to §6045 requires actions by the IRS and is confusing and potentially too broad to be administrable (unless the IRS addresses that broadness). The issue is that “broker” is expanded to include: “any person who (for consideration) is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person.” While the goal was likely to make virtual currency exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken be brokers, the reach is potentially wider. For example, what about a company that provides various software for transfers or wallets?

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Late on November 5, 2021, the House passed (228-206) H.R. 3684, INVEST in America – the infrastructure bill that has received a lot of attention this year. It already passed in the Senate on August 10 (69-30).

One of the few tax items here and added for tax gap concerns is to expand the definition of broker under §6045 to require additional reporting for certain digital asset transactions. A few observations:

1. There are much bigger tax gap concerns than misreporting or non-reporting of digital asset transactions such as underreporting and non-reporting by some cash businesses.

2. The text added to §6045 requires actions by the IRS and is confusing and potentially too broad to be administrable (unless the IRS addresses that broadness). The issue is that “broker” is expanded to include: “any person who (for consideration) is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person.” While the goal was likely to make virtual currency exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken be brokers, the reach is potentially wider. For example, what about a company that provides various software for transfers or wallets?

Read More