Bitcoin Exchange Kraken to Share User Information with the U.S. IRS!

• Crypto exchange Kraken is preparing to share specific user information with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) next month as per a court decision received in June.
• The IRS-Kraken dispute began in May 2021 when a U.S. federal court granted the authority to serve a John Doe summons on the crypto exchange and its subsidiaries to catch tax evaders.
• Kraken is required to provide profile information and transaction history for customers who conducted transactions exceeding $20,000 in any year between 2016 and 2020.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is set to share user information with the IRS following the outcome of a legal dispute.

Kraken to Share User Information with IRS

Crypto exchange Kraken is preparing to share specific user information with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) next month as per a court decision received in June. An email sent to affected U.S. users from COINOTAG stated, “Kraken anticipates sharing this information under the court order beginning in early November 2023.”

Kraken did not immediately respond to COINOTAG’s request for comment. The IRS-Kraken dispute began in May 2021 when a U.S. federal court granted the authority to serve a John Doe summons on the crypto exchange and its subsidiaries to catch tax evaders. At the time, the IRS claimed Kraken was not complying with the summons. In February of this year, the tax agency submitted a court document seeking permission to enforce the summons, and a federal court in June ruled that Kraken must provide user information to the IRS.

As per the June decision, Kraken is required to provide profile information and transaction history for customers who conducted transactions exceeding $20,000 in any year between 2016 and 2020. This information includes names, birth dates, tax identification numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and transaction histories for those five years.

The IRS had requested more information, including IP addresses, business details, sources of wealth, net worth, and banking information of users. However, Kraken stated in its Thursday email that it had succeeded in “significantly reducing” the number of affected customers and the amount of customer data it will produce. According to the June court decision, the reduced number appears to be significantly fewer than the initial 59,331 Kraken users the IRS had originally requested data for.

Kraken is not the only crypto firm sharing information with the IRS

Kraken is not the only crypto firm sharing user information with the IRS. Its rival Coinbase shared details of around 13,000 users with the federal tax agency in 2018. In 2021, the IRS issued similar summons to crypto exchange Poloniex and stablecoin issuer Circle.