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A Run Through On Tax Evasion By Bitcoin Criminals

IRS (Internal Revenue Services) appears to be considering tax evasion meticulously that stems from the cryptocurrency use and taking necessary control points to address this. Of late, the tax authorities have been constantly shedding light on crypto-taxation norms.

The US IRS has released criminal investigation annual report 2019 that has established its milestone of 100 years of law enforcement.

Contemplating advanced era of technological revolution, the report emphasized on the fight against criminals to evade taxes by committing considerable crimes. The files of the Bureau of Internal Revenue detail thousands of reports of investigations which resulted in convictions of tax evaders.

Recently, the British tax, payments and customs authority, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has updated its cryptocurrency taxation guidelines for businesses and individuals. The U.K. government tax agency who administers taxes in conjunction with the fiscal policy making, have recently updated the tax guidance.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the agency entrusted for the tax collections and interrogating tax evaders, as the cryptocurrencies are to be treated as the assets tax computation.

The report released by IRS has now emphasized excessively Bitcoin’s scope for committing some crimes, the report elaborated the prevailing apprehensions and the shutting down of Bitcoin-funded darknet child pornography website.

South Korean National and hundreds of others charged worldwide in the takedown of the largest darknet child pornography website, which was funded by bitcoin.

In October 2019, the largest Darkweb child pornography site in the world was taken down. IRS-CI, agents became aware of Welcome to Video, the largest child sexual exploitation market by volume of content, because of their work on previous Darkweb marketplaces. IRS-CI was able to trace bitcoin transactions on the site to people all over the world who were uploading and downloading this material, as well as find the location of the site administrator. By analysing the blockchain and de-anonymizing bitcoin transactions, IRS-CI special agents were able to identify hundreds of predators around the world - even though those users thought that they could remain anonymous. As a result of the investigations, Jong Woo Son, 23, a South Korean national, was indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia for operating the site.

The IRS divulged their association with nations’ agencies to fix tax evasion from cryptocurrency users. The troop of five-countries, come together, which is known as the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement or J5, that includes the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), the Dutch Fiscale Inlichtingen- en Opsporingsdienst (FIOD), the British HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) & Australian Taxation Office (ATO), and the American Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).

A senior agent in the IRS’s Criminal Investigations office based in L.A., Ryan Korner, said recently “when digital currencies became popularized, the tax agency had issues keeping up with alleged tax evaders. However, the IRS has gained expertise when it comes to individuals moving the money, “we have tools in place that we didn’t have six months or a year ago,” Korner’s clarifications to reporters.

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