Kraken may hand over the trading information of traders with transaction amounts reaching $20,000 to the IRS

According to ChainCatcher news, as reported by Fortune, the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Kraken may hand over trading information of traders with transaction amounts reaching $20,000 or more to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Previously, the IRS had requested user information from Kraken, but the exchange refused to cooperate, leading the IRS to seek enforcement of a subpoena issued to its parent company, Payward Ventures Inc., from a federal judge in February this year. After months of debate, the judge sided with the IRS last Friday and ruled that the subpoena should be enforced.

The judge stated, "The IRS is conducting an investigation to determine whether U.S. taxpayers using cryptocurrency are complying with domestic tax laws. To advance this investigation, this court approves the issuance of a subpoena to Payward Ventures." Kraken opposed the IRS's subpoena, calling the investigation a "baseless treasure hunt."

According to the judge's ruling, Kraken is now obligated to provide approximately 160 million transaction records and relevant information for 59,351 accounts. Although Kraken's lawyers argued that this is an unnecessary burden, the judge pointed out that "the subpoena requests relevant records, and even if the subpoena requests the production (or search) of a large number of records, or results in the payor spending a significant amount of time and money, it will not be denied." (source link)