Coin Center Sues Treasury and IRS

Author

CoinSnacks
June 16, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

Coin Center, a Washington, DC-based crypto think-tank, on Friday filed a lawsuit in federal district court against the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claiming that a new crypto tax-reporting requirement in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which passed last summer, is unconstitutional.

The so-called 6050I amendment hidden in the infrastructure bill is “unconstitutional on its face, and simply can’t be fixed through regulation… If the amendment is allowed to go into effect, it will impose a mass surveillance regime on ordinary Americans,” Coin Center stated in its latest blog post.

The amendment, to the surprise of many today, apparently will require individuals and businesses who receive $10,000 or more in crypto to report to the government not just the name of who sent them the funds, but that person’s date of birth and Social Security number as well.

“Are you an artist who sells a painting or an NFT for $15K? You have to file a form informing the government on your client’s personal information. Are you a nonprofit who receives anonymous donations for your humanitarian work? No longer. You may have to give the government a list of your donors. This is an affront to our civil liberties that must be challenged the only way they can at this point: in court.”

All of today’s entrepreneurs and developers within the crypto ecosystem deserve credit for creating innovative products and boosting awareness to public about the benefits of crypto. That’s for certain.

But we cannot forget those who take it one step further, by battling regulatory bodies and unfair public policies head-on in court. They are arguably just as important.

That said, props to Peter Van Valkenburgh and the team Coin Center for consistently delivering.