NCLA Backs Bitcoin in IRS-Related Lawsuit

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), has taken the side of Bitcoin in a recent lawsuit involving the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), according to a press release from the group.

One James Harper, a Bitcoin investor, is suing the IRS for the “crime” of having a Bitcoin wallet. The NCLA is backing Harper up in the case called James Harper v. Charles P. Rettig, the release notes.

Allegedly, Harper is angry that the IRS has “acquired the unbridled power to demand and seize Americans’ private financial information from third parties without any judicial process in defiance of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and statutory protections.”

Essentially, Harper has been buying Bitcoin since 2013, but unlike many, he has since put the effort in to pay all relevant taxes and reported trades as required via his transactions on Coinbase, Abra, and Uphold. However, these platforms are required to uphold traders information, and it appears that did not happen here.

In 2019, Harper was one of 10,000 to receive a “letter from IRS informing him that the agency had obtained his financial records related to ownership of bitcoin without any particularized suspicion of wrongdoing.”

They somehow acquired his financial information despite Harper not having committed any crimes.