IRS: U.S. will treat bitcoin as property for tax purposes

The IRS announced last week that the United States will treat bitcoin and other digital currencies as property. Cryptocurrency will be taxed as property for U.S. federal tax purposes, and their transactions will be subject to general tax principles.


"This guidance should help provide clarity for taxpayers," IRS spokesperson Dean Patterson told the E- Commerce Times.

Taxpayers who get digital currency as payment for goods or services are required to calculate that amount at the currency's market price in U.S. dollars as of the date that payment was received. That includes taxpayers who mine cryptocurrency.

The ruling "is a very good thing from a business standpoint, because it answers the lingering question of what the [U.S.] government is going to do with bitcoin," Stephanie Wargo, BitPay's vice president of marketing, told the E-Commerce Times. "We all knew the IRS was going to get their cut and this takes the ambiguity out of the way."