IRS obtains authorization to seek information of Circle and Poloniex users

The federal court has given the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) permission to pursue information of Poloniex and Circle crypto exchange users in a bid to identify crypto users that conducted transactions worth $20,000 or more between 2016 and 2020.

Through an announcement made by The US Department of Justice on Thursday, the IRS was authorized by the federal court to serve Circle Internet Financial Inc., or its predecessors, subsidiaries, divisions, and affiliates, including Poloniex with a John Doe summons.

Circle is a cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in Boston that bought Poloniex in 2018 although Poloniex later spun into a new company under the name Polo Digital Ltd. That is why although the IRS is essentially after Circle, Poloniex was part of Circle in 2018 and some users did transaction through it then.

IRS is investigating since it believes some individuals did transactions with Circle between 2016 and 2020 that did not fully comply with the provisions of the internal revenue laws.

Circle and Poloniex follows Coinbase with being served with John Doe summons by the IRS

Coinbase was the recent crypto exchange to be served with a John Doe summons by the IRS. The crypto exchange fought the order for a year but later gave in and produced data for over 14,000 users.

What is a John Doe summons?

A John Doe Summons is an investigative tool that the IRS can use to get the names of US taxpayers that it believes violates the law if permitted by a federal court. The name John Doe is because the name of the taxpayer(s) under question is unknown to the IRS.

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