In a juicy little chunk of news from the Redditsphere, a user claiming to be a former IRS employee has called the agency’s new crypto compliance letters “broad and very error-prone fishing expeditions.” The throwaway account details the “really bad data” used by the agency, saying they’re operating mostly from guesswork, casting broad nets and leveraging fear to generate revenue. Internal reports from the group itself lament a lack of staff, funding, and tech know-how. A former auditor’s experience attests to the chaos and implications, affirming that the IRS may be little more than a poorly run “fishing” scam of massive proportions.
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Ineptitude Reigns Supreme
The agency famous for long lines and severely understaffed offices, “courtesy disconnects” on the phone, and outdated, enragingly tedious filing procedures is now subject to even further criticism: how in the hell could they possibly deal with a fast-paced technology like crypto, when they can’t even process fiat taxes efficiently? Well, they’re trying, via a new letter campaign launched in June, warning crypto holders suspected of misfiling that they mean business.
Reddit user and self-proclaimed former IRS employee u/IRS_throwaway_BT states: “It strikes me that this [cryptocurrency] letter writing campaign in particular is very unethical, as they’re blindly scaring thousands of people shitless who very well may have done absolutely nothing wrong. Many of these people will seek legal or professional tax help at a large cost to them … In a fair world they’d [the IRS] face a class action lawsuit for this predatory behavior.”
