White House moves closer to allowing IRS to surveil international crypto transactions

The White House is reviewing a proposed rule that would grant the Internal Revenue Service access to information on U.S. taxpayers’ digital asset transactions conducted in foreign jurisdictions.

The rule was received by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Friday. The office is part of the Office of Management and Budget, which reviews federal regulations and policies to ensure that rules align with the president's priorities. 

This comes after the White House released a wide-ranging digital asset report over the summer that addressed several issues, including how crypto should be regulated. In the report, there was a recommendation to the IRS and Treasury to consider proposing rules to implement the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). CARF is an international standard that looks to improve tax compliance by requiring digital asset providers to report specific transactions to regulators, according to the report. 

"U.S. regulations implementing CARF would discourage U.S. taxpayers from moving their digital assets to offshore digital asset exchanges," the White House said in the report. "Implementing CARF would promote the growth and use of digital assets in the United States and alleviate concerns that the lack of a reporting program could disadvantage the United States or U.S. digital asset exchanges."

At the same time, the White House report had also noted that new rules should not bring in any new reporting requirements for DeFi transactions.