The Internal Revenue Service today announced the addition of two private-sector experts to help the agency’s efforts in the cryptocurrency and other digital assets arena.
Sulolit “Raj” Mukherjee, JD, and Seth Wilks, CPA, have been hired as executive advisors.
The pair, who have extensive experience in the tax and crypto industries, will help lead IRS efforts building service, reporting, compliance and enforcement programs focused on digital assets.
“This is a complex and evolving sector that has major tax administration implications,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “It’s important we get this right for taxpayers and the nation. 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.”
Mukherjee has been a tax executive for more than 10 years in tax compliance and tax information reporting for financial institutions and has extensive experience in the crypto industry. He joins the IRS from a private blockchain software technology company where he served as Global Head of Tax.
Wilks comes to the IRS having worked in the digital asset tax policy space for the past six years. Prior to this Wilks worked extensively with tax compliance and planning issues related to multinational corporations and manufacturing, with a focus on complex supply chains, transfer pricing and cross-border transactions.
“Seth and Raj expand our ability to understand this sector while designing systems for reporting of cryptocurrency and digital assets and related transactions,” said Doug O’Donnell, IRS Deputy Commissioner, Services and Enforcement. “Improving employee capacity and access to tools in this rapidly evolving global landscape is a top IRS priority.”
With funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS is working on a variety of taxpayer service and technology improvements as well as expanding enforcement efforts in complex, high-wealth areas where there are compliance concerns. The IRS is also focused on compliance in emerging areas.
Expanded work on digital assets is one of the priority areas where the IRS will focus, including work through the John Doe summons effort and the release of proposed regulations of broker reporting in August 2023 (see IR-2023-153 for more on reporting).
A digital asset is a digital representation of value that is recorded on a cryptographically secured, distributed ledger or any similar technology. Common digital assets include convertible virtual currency and cryptocurrency; stablecoins; and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Everyone who files Forms 1040, 1040-SR, 1040-NR, 1041, 1065, 1120, 1120 and 1120S must check one box answering either “Yes” or “No” to the digital asset question.
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