Why the IRS wants to know about your crypto this tax season

If you were hoping to keep your bitcoin stash under wraps from the IRS, think again.

As the 2019 tax season kicks off on Jan. 27, the taxman is expecting you to disclose whether you had any cryptocurrency transactions last year.

The IRS asks the following question on the first page of Schedule 1 of the individual income tax return: “At any time during 2019, did you receive, sell, send, exchange or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?”

“If the answer is yes, then say yes,” said April Walker, CPA and lead manager for tax practice and ethics at the American Institute of CPAs.

“But from a documentation standpoint, there are many different ways that you can interact with cryptocurrency,” she said.

“The overarching idea is, however you transact with it, you’ll need to track your transactions,” said Walker.

This new question is only the latest salvo from the IRS, signaling the taxman’s heightened interest in virtual currency.

Last summer, the agency sent letters to