Canada
Canada Revenue Agency launches cryptocurrency tax judicial investigation on Dapper Labs users
On December 8th, according to The Block, court documents show that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has collected over CAD 100 million (approximately USD 72 million) in taxes through cryptocurrency related audits over the past three years, but has not filed any criminal charges since 2020, exposing the country's structural limitations in law enforcement capabilities.
The report states that CRA has a team of 35 crypto auditors who have handled over 230 cases and estimate that approximately 40% of taxpayers using crypto platforms have not declared taxes or have high compliance risks. However, the Chief Crypto Auditor of the agency acknowledged in an affidavit that the CRA believes it is "unable to reliably identify taxpayers in the crypto sector and assess their compliance with" income tax obligations.
In addition, the report also stated that CRA has obtained data from 2500 users through court orders from Dapper Labs, the NFT company behind NBA Top Shot and CryptoKitties. The CRA initially requested information on the top 18000 Dapper users, but after consulting with company executives and lawyers, the scope was narrowed down to 2500. The CRA filed an application with the Federal Court of Canada in September, marking the second time the court has required Canadian cryptocurrency companies to disclose such information. Similar commands were previously sent to Coinsquare, a Toronto based trading platform, in 2020.