Don't Mess With Taxes

Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

Tax Day 2022 is just more than a week away, and based on Internal Revenue Service filing statistics, millions of us need to get to work. Uncle Sam's tax collector says the nearly 92.3 million filings it received through April 1 are running about 2 percent behind last year's numbers.

Using 2021 numbers for comparison, that's more than 77.8 million unfiled returns so far this year. Of course, last year's filing figure is larger than previous years since millions who weren't required to submit returns did so that they could get COVID-9 economic impact payments.

But even using pre-pandemic filing data from 2019, the IRS still is awaiting around 64.5 million returns.

There are many reasons why folks every year put off filing their taxes. But this 2022 filing season, it appears that many tax procrastinators are investors in cryptocurrency.

So this weekend's Saturday Shout Outs go to some items looking at digital currency and tax filing.

Slow crypto taxpayers: This Bitcoin and beyond bonanza of tax topics starts with an item in the April 7th Eide Bailly tax blog roundup. CPA and Eide Bailly partner Joe Kristan, known to #TaxTwitter as @joebwan, cites an Accounting Today item on the slowness of crypto filers.

Joe's tip on lagging crypto filers also has a link to the accounting firm's look at IRS guidance on the tax ramifications of virtual currency transactions. But Joe gets the top shout out because of his advice to filing-hesitant crypto owners: "Don't rush a filing if you aren't sure how to handle cryptocurrency transactions. Extend and consult a tax pro."

The Accounting Today piece by Chris Gaetano, Vast majority of crypto investors have not filed taxes, obviously is the next shout out. Gaetano tells us that just 3 percent of U.S. cryptocurrency investors had filed their taxes as of the end of March. That's miniscule compared to the 40 percent of individual returns already filed.

The third shout out goes to digital asset platform CoinTracker, which supplied the digital asset filing numbers.

Finally, for some deep digging into virtual currency weeds, check out the three-part look at how cryptocurrencies and other digital assets are taking center stage in 2022 (part 1, part 2, and part 3) by Anshu Khanna for Bloomberg Tax.

Long-time readers of the ol' blog know that I'm a Say It With Cash kind of gal, so I'm taking the rest of the weekend to watch Major League Baseball games. But if crypto is king for you, or you're just crypto curious, enjoy these Saturday Shout Outs.

You also might find these items of interest:

• Be sure to report cryptocurrency activity on your tax return
• A look at digital asset info reporting in the infrastructure law
• IRS clarifies when a cryptocurrency transaction isn't a tax transaction

Advertisements