IRS taps 2 former digital asset execs to ramp up ‘crypto’ tax expertise

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The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has hired two former digital asset industry executives to beef up its ‘crypto’ tax expertise.

The IRS recently announced the hiring of Sulolit “Raj” Mukherjee, JD, and Seth Wilks, CPA, to ramp up the agency’s efforts in “building service, reporting, compliance, and enforcement programs.”

Mukherjee joins the tax agency after serving in tax compliance for financial institutions for over a decade. He most recently served as the global head of tax at ConsenSys, the New York-based incubator headed by Ethereum (NASDAQ: ETH) co-founder Joe Lubin.

Previously, he served with Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) and Binance.US, where he led the tax compliance departments of the two exchanges. He co-chaired the Tax Working Group at the Washington-based lobby group Blockchain Association.

Before shifting focus to digital assets, Mukherjee was the head of tax compliance at JPMorgan’s (NASDAQ: JPM) wealth management division and the vice president of tax at HSBC (NASDAQ: HSBC).

Wilks served as the vice president for TaxBit, a software company providing tax compliance solutions for digital asset firms.

Commenting on the new hires, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel acknowledged the growing significance of the ‘crypto’ tax, saying that it’s essential that the IRS “to get it right.”

“Pulling in expertise from the private sector to work with the IRS team is critical to successfully building the agency’s efforts involving digital assets and helping us do it in a way that works well for everyone,” he added.

IRS has ramped up its digital asset tax efforts in recent months as the sector continues to grow and generate billions in profits. Last December, the agency revealed that digital asset-related tax cases are rapidly increasing.

Speaking to the press, Jim Lee, the head of the agency’s criminal investigation division,
noted that money laundering dominated ‘crypto’ crimes three years ago. However, today, over half of these crimes are tax-related, he revealed.

This has placed the IRS at the center of the U.S. government’s efforts to oversee the digital asset industry. The agency has played a critical role in investigations that have recovered billions or brought titans down, like the 2016 Bitfinex hack by a New York couple.