Internal Revenue Service

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

The same day Bitcoin cracked its all-time high above $11,000, the government dealt its first blow to the crypto world...

On Wednesday, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the popular Bitcoin exchange, Coinbase, to provide the IRS with information on over 14,000 account holders.

The taxman noticed that only 800-900 people reported gains related to Bitcoin in each of the years between 2013-2015. It seemed unusual given Bitcoin’s meteoric rise.

Almost exactly one year ago, the IRS realized that it could be leaving billions of dollars on the table in the form of uncollected taxes, and launched a tax-evasion probe on the largest US Bitcoin exchange, Coinbase, seeking to identify all Coinbase users in the U.S. who “conducted transactions in a convertible virtual currency” from 2013 to 2015.

Via The Daily Bell

At first glance, it might seem like some justice has finally been delivered.

The Department of Justice has settled a class-action lawsuit brought by Tea Party groups from across the country. The government has admitted that what happened was a violation of rights.

Back before the 2012 election, the IRS started scrutinizing certain non-profit applications more closely. Political organizations seeking tax exempt status as non-profits are pretty typical. But for some reason, the IRS decided to delay over 400 applications.

Authored by Alex Thomas via SHTFplan.com,

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has won a years-long legal battle against the Internal Revenue Service in which the agency admitted that it wrongfully targeted Tea Party conservatives, during the Obama Administration, specifically because of their political viewpoints.

In issuing an “apology” to the clients represented by the ACLJ, the IRS admitted that it was wrong to use the United States tax code simply because of an entity’s name.

And the hits just keep on coming...

Until today's headlines indicating the possibility of another breach of Equifax's security, dip-buyers had been enjoying a few days' relief as analysts clammored to explain how one of the biggest cyberhacks of all time did nothing to hinder Equifax's business model. Tonight, they might just start questioning that as Politico reports The IRS has temporarily suspended the $7.2 million, no-bid contract it awarded to Equifax to verify the identities of taxpayers.