IRS v. Coinbase: exchange now has to give the private data of some users to government

The court in the United States took the side of the argument between the Internal Revenue Service and Coinbase. The governmental organization, responsible for collecting taxes and preventing various misconducts regarding this matter, insisted that over 10,000 of users of the crypto coin exchange were avoiding tax laws of America.

In the previous report on the theme, Bitnewstoday told how the judge responsible for the case openly supported the position voiced by the IRS. And now the official order of the court tells that the managers of Coinbase have to give records on everybody who used the exchange’s services to the law enforcement, but the word “some” in the title of this post is not without reason: if you are a Coinbase client and did not sell, transfer or bought more than $20,000 between 2013 and 2015, your private data stays private even for the IRS.

The decision of the court will undoubtedly anger some cryptocurrency enthusiasts who believe that the market should develop as it is, without any governmental interventions. Sadly, the governments of the world have a different opinion, but we also have to remember there might be some actual criminals who hide illicit finance on the accounts the data of which the IRS demands. It’s better for Coinbase to follow the decision and sacrifice the privacy of some users than to completely close and slowly rebuild its business like BTC-e, which, too, had both honest clients and criminals as users.