[drvdevd]

Right, but the IRS has already classified bitcoin and provided guidance as to reporting requirements [1]. This situation isn't much different to cash wages. You can in theory not report any of it, but then you're breaking essentially the same law.

My question is: don't losses from unreported cash wages vastly outnumber losses from unreported virtual currencies and isn't that likely to remain the case for the forseeable future?

With this sort of action, is the IRS signaling a belief that virtual currencies will replace cash for average citizens in the near future?

[1] https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/irs-virtual-currency-guidan...

[jsjohnst]

I'm not sure there is the massive "losses from unreported cash wages" you seem to imply there is.

There's two main forms of "cash wages" in the US. One being wait staff, the other being "under the counter pay" to workers, generally labor intensive. Wait staff who regularly under report their tips are easily identified by the IRS. In the second case, these generally aren't well paid jobs (thus wouldn't generate much, if any, tax revenue).

[vajrabum]

There's underreporting and tax evasion in almost any business which can be conducted on a cash basis. I know of a heating air-conditioning contractor (now deceased I believe) who regularly got customers to write checks directly out to him and take those to a check cashing business. He was very clear he was doing this to evade taxes.

[EdHominem]

They aren't implying there are massive losses. They implied that the losses from cash, whatever they are, would massively outnumber the losses from cryptocurrencies. (And thus that cryptocurrency-focused reforms are missing the point.)