Coinbase crypto exchange chief legal officer Paul Grewal called on the crypto community to join the movement against the United States Treasury’s proposed tax reporting regulations on cryptocurrencies. Grewal urged the community to oppose the proposed regulations, as they could set a dangerous precedent for surveillance.
Grewal took to X (formerly Twitter) to address the concerns associated with the proposed crypto tax reporting rules and claimed they go beyond the congressional mandate to establish tax reporting rules. He added that if the proposed regulations become a law, it would put “digital assets at a disadvantage and threaten to harm a nascent industry when it’s just getting started.“
Everyone who cares about fairness and supports American innovation should chime in on Treasury’s proposed regulations for tax reporting of digital assets. You can join @StandwithCrypto’s opposition to the rulemaking here. 1/4 https://t.co/4eALt1Frxo
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released a draft of proposed regulations for crypto tax reporting on Aug. 25. Under the proposed rules, crypto brokers would be required to use a new form to report to simplify tax filing and cut down on tax cheating. The proposed regulations include centralized and decentralized exchanges, crypto payment processors, certain online wallets and crypto brokers.
The Treasury Department claimed that the new form would simplify the tax filing process as it would help taxpayers determine if they owe taxes rather than having to make complicated calculations or pay digital asset tax preparation services to file their tax returns. If approved, the new tax regime will come into effect from 2026 and the brokers will be required to start reporting 2025 transactions in January 2026 via Form 1099-DA. However, many U.S. lawmakers urged the IRS to implement crypto tax reporting requirements before 2026.
The Treasury Department claimed the crypto tax reporting rules would put digital assets in line with traditional financial reporting, but Coinbase’s legal officer insists this is not the case. Grewal, in his X post, noted that the proposed rules would set a “dangerous precedent for surveillance of the everyday financial activities of consumers by requiring nearly every digital asset transaction – even the purchase of a cup of coffee – to be reported.”
Coinbase chief legal officer noted that the proposed regulations would require the collection of a significant amount of user data that bears no “legitimate public purpose.” Grewal said the data collection would overburden Web3 startups with costly requirements while offering the “IRS with more data than they can ingest and analyze.”
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Zack Polanski, the new leader of the Green Party, has been studying one politician closely this summer – Nigel Farage.
The 42-year-old, who stormed his party’s leadership contest by a large margin, calls himself an “eco-populist” (he used to be involved in Extinction Rebellion), and thinks the Greens could learn a lot from the media-savvy tactics of Reform which have seen them surge ahead of Labour in the polls.
Can the former actor and hypnotherapist, who rails against corporations and wants to tax the rich, take his party into the big leagues?
Image: Zack Polanski. Pic: PA
Speaking to him after his win was announced, Mr Polanski told me: “I despise Nigel Farage’s politics and I’d never copy what he does, but it’s undeniable that he cuts through; everyone knows who he is and that bold messaging – but for the truth, not the lies and misinformation he spins – that’s what you’ll hear more of from the Green Party.”
Mr Polanski is not an MP – he’s been on the London Assembly since 2021 and served as the party’s deputy leader. His two rivals in the leadership contest Adrian Ramsay, one of the party’s current leaders, and Ellie Chowns, were elected last year, but are not well-known to the public.
His more aggressive style and punchy social media clips appealed to party members impatient for results. His videos target “corporations who are destroying our democracy”; warn that “fascism is at our doorstep” and “call bullshit” – as he puts it – on the debate about asylum.
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As one of the members at the event summed it up: “People don’t know what we stand for, we need to be loud and clear about what we’re for and what we’re against, and Zac will do that.”
He’s put some noses out of joint within the party, and the tabloid press has called him the “boob whisperer” after The Sun reported in 2013 that, while working as a hypnotherapist, he told a woman who wanted bigger breasts that she could do so with the power of her mind. Mr Polanski apologised and says he is focused on the future.
Image: Pic: PA
His ambitions are high for the fifth party in British politics – currently polling at around 10%.
“Thirty to forty MPs at the next election”, he says. Enough to deny Labour a majority if it’s close, or to be kingmakers. As politics fractures, he hopes they could have a big impact for the first time in decades.
The Green Party in the UK – unlike its counterparts in other European countries – has struggled electorally until very recently. It was formed in a pub in Coventry in 1972 by activists inspired by the US environmentalist Paul Ehrlich, who warned that the world was overpopulated, spelling disaster for nature.
Its biggest success was in the 1989 European elections, gaining 15% of the vote, but representation in parliament was not achieved until 2010 when Caroline Lucas took Brighton Pavilion from Labour. She became an influential campaigner on the climate, fracking and animal rights, also warning against economic growth at any cost.
After she stood down, the party struggled to find its voice, with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party pursuing a radical left-wing agenda. Now, after winning four MPs last year, Mr Polanski believes that with Labour in government and Reform at its coat tails, their moment has come.
He told members: “We can, and we will lower your bills. We will nationalise the water companies. We will hold this Labour government to account.
“Because when we look at Keir Starmer and what this government have been doing; whether it’s the two-child benefit cap, the disability cuts, the genocide in Gaza, my message to Labour is very clear: we are not here to be disappointed by you. We are not here to be concerned by you. We’re here to replace you.”
All of that may not endear him to all the Green Party’s potential supporters. The party now has 860 councillors, but some are in rural areas where they’ve won seats from the Tories.
There is a political opportunity on the left. Mr Polanski says he knows what will get his party into the spotlight. But it’s a far bigger task to deliver seats in parliament – including one he’ll need for himself.
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