Still waiting for crypto – POLITICO

[ad_1]

It’s been a while since we heard from the IRS on cryptocurrency. And it may take a little longer.

The IRS hopes to issue new guidance in about 12 months, an agency official said at the Consensus 2023 crypto conference last week, according to trade publication CoinDesk.

The matter is urgent, given that top IRS officials have said that cryptocurrency is a major contributor to the huge tax gap in the United States, the difference between what it owes and what it actually has. paid. But it is also very complex and controversial.

Crypto players and some lawmakers have long complained that the IRS has provided very little clarity on tax rules for the industry and virtual currency holders.

In 2021, Congress passed legislation requiring cryptocurrency brokers to report transactions involving digital assets to the IRS starting in 2023, just as brokers must report purchases and sales of stocks and securities. . Businesses should start tracking and reporting crypto sales.

New laws also subject digital assets to basic reporting, which would allow the IRS to determine how much taxpayers have earned on a crypto trade and therefore owe taxes.

But the IRS said in late 2022 that implementation of all those laws would be delayed until it releases the proposed regulations and invites comment. He did not provide a timetable.

WELL PICK UP THIS THREAD BELOW, but first a little housekeeping. Welcome to the work week. Like Elvis Costello said, you gotta do it until you get it, so you better get on with it. Make our week a little easier by sending us some tips.

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] And [email protected]. Or Twitter: @tobyeckert, @brian_faler, @ben_guggenheim, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Tax.

Would you like to receive this newsletter every day of the week? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily political news and other information you need to take action on the biggest stories of the day.

The presence of Julie Foerster, director of the IRS project for digital assets, at Consensus 2023 seemed to be a kind of listening and discovery.

We are engaging with all of you to get it right and build a plan, she said, according to Coinbase.

She pointed out that the digital asset landscape is changing and highlighted the need for increased communications between the agency and the crypto community.

Foerster also said the IRS needs to look at the skills of the people we have today and those we will hire in the future, CoinBase reported. We need to have the right tools and the right people.

The strategic plan the IRS released last month for its new $80 billion funding includes hiring more experts to manage digital assets and developing new analytics capabilities to support asset compliance. assets, a milestone it has set for fiscal year 2024. It also plans to have its information reporting platform enhanced to support digital asset reporting in fiscal year 2024.

AI REPORT CARD: There has been a lot of talk lately about how artificial intelligence could affect the tax world, for better or for worse. As our Benjamin Guggenheim reported in this space last month, an expert found that the buzzy ChatGPT bot did a good job when asked to cook up tax scams. On the other hand, the IRS is using AI to catch tax evaders and improve customer service.

It’s the same in the accounting industry, some see it as a threat to their livelihood, others as a powerful tool they can use. (Even ChatGPT has its own opinion on this, according to Accounting Today.)

Now, Brigham Young University has released a report measuring ChatGPT scores in accounting exams. The massive, participatory project involved 186 universities in 14 countries, which provided a total of 25,181 exam questions and 2,268 textbook test questions.

Comparing the performance of the bots to that of the human students, the researchers found that the students won, hands down, with an overall average score of 76.7% compared to 47.4% for ChatGPT. Among the worst subjects of the bots: taxes.

On 11.3% of the questions, ChatGPT scored above the student average, doing particularly well on AIS and auditing. But the AI ​​bot did worse on tax, financial and management assessments, possibly because ChatGPT struggled with the mathematical processes required for the latter type, according to a summary of the study.

One caveat: the researchers used the original version of ChatGPT, not the newer product, GPT-4.

The report’s authors expect GPT-4 to exponentially improve the accounting questions asked in their study and the problems the bot stumbled upon, according to the abstract. What they find most promising is how the chatbot can help improve teaching and learning, including the ability to design and test assignments, or perhaps be used to write parts of a project.

Wall Street Journal: Americans along Canadian border smoke out of Ottawa housing tax

The Guardian: King Charles urged to push to dismantle UK network of satellite tax havens

Reuters: Brazilian Lula promises new minimum wage policy and expanded tax exemption

Bitcoin: Report: Kenya to start levying tax on revenue generated from crypto exchanges

The Oregonian: Oregon dreams of semiconductor factories, but land and tax breaks go to data centers instead

WPDH: New York State Sets Highest Cigarette Tax in Nation

Portland Press Herald: Maine towns and cities face historic tax increases as costs relentlessly rise

Hawaii News Now: We were just thrilled: Anti-vaping advocates win nine-year battle to tax tobacco-like vaping products

Accounting Today: A Better Tax Season for Just About Everyone

HAL 9000, the mutinous AI computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, was built at the fictional HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois. The reference was inspired by the very real Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois, where some of the first supercomputers were created. built.

[ad_2]