H&R Block encourages its customers to disclose their bitcoin gains

If you bought or sold cryptocurrency in 2019, the IRS would like to know about it.

This year, the tax agency has added a new question to the top of Form 1040 that was never there before: “At any time during 2019, did you receive, sell, send, exchange or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?”

Over the past few years, the general attitude in the crypto community was that you could get away without disclosing crypto gains (or losses) on your taxes, since the process is confusing and the IRS’s stated guidelines and understanding of crypto limited.

But then in 2019 the IRS sent “educational letters” to more than 10,000 taxpayers “who may have failed to properly report virtual currency transactions.”

And now the IRS is asking explicitly. And H&R Block (HRB), the tax preparation giant with about 10,000 locations in the U.S., is telling customers with crypto that they should answer.