The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has disclosed that it has heightened operations to seek out tax evaders who have failed to pay crypto-related taxes, after the country passed laws allowing crypto trading in 2017.

Monitoring Crypto Trading to Collect Taxes

According to a Cryptopolitan report, many crypto traders have capitalized on this year’s Bitcoin boom, but some traders in Australia have failed to pay taxes on those earnings.

To tackle this issue, Australian authorities are now reportedly working with various crypto exchanges based in the country and overseas in order to track user activity and seek out tax evaders.

Will Day, Deputy Commissioner of the ATO, also revealed that the agency is gathering a large amount of data that will be used to identify citizens who have neglected to pay taxes from crypto earnings.

Cracking Down on Tax Evaders

An estimated 4 percent of Australian citizens possess some kind of cryptocurrency, and authorities therefore believe there may be a large number of people avoiding taxes on their crypto earnings. 

The ATO revealed that it expects to receive over A$3 billion in fines from crypto tax violators. Apart from monetary fines, offenders may also be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison. 

However, authorities have stated that those who choose to declare their taxable earnings before the crackdown will receive significantly reduced penalties.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Internal Revenue Service has also been closely monitoring crypto traders and has reportedly sent collection letters to crypto investors.

Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com

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