Treasury seeks to crack down on cryptocurrency, tax compliance

May 20 (UPI) -- The Treasury Department on Thursday it's requiring all transfers worth at least $10,000 to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service in a bid to crack down on cryptocurrency scams.

The announcement was part of the Biden administration's 24-page tax compliance agenda seeking to close the "tax gap" between taxes owed the government and those actually paid. The Treasury Department said 2019 had a tax gap of nearly $600 billion, a figure that's likely to rise to about $7 billion over the next decade if unaddressed.

The report said cryptocurrencies and cryptoasset exchange accounts would be brought into a new financial account reporting regime.

"Cryptocurrency already poses a significant detection problem by facilitating illegal activity broadly including tax evasion," the report said.

The department said it plans to raise an extra $700 billion in tax revenue over the next decade through its new agenda. By comparison, the United States collected slightly more than $3 trillion in tax revenue in 2020.

Some measures, including an increase in spending at the IRS to carry out the agenda, would require congressional approval.