US Judge Refuses to Quash IRS Summons for Bitstamp Exchange Records
A federal judge denied a Washington state resident’s petition to stop the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from gathering data about his bitcoin holdings from the Bitstamp exchange.
In a ruling Monday, Judge John Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington instead ordered the IRS to narrow the scope of a summons it had issued to Bitstamp.
The ruling is notable because the judge rejected two arguments likely to resonate with cryptocurrency users, especially cypherpunk early adopters: that the petitioner had a constitutional right to financial privacy, and that third parties (in this case, the tax collector) cannot be trusted to safeguard sensitive personal information.