Diesen Artikel teilen

IRS' Crypto Leads Are Leaving the Agency After Accepting DOGE Deals

The pair took voluntary resignation offers and left their positions after only a little more than a year of government service, according to two people.

Raj Mukherjee (left) and Seth Wilks speaking at CoinDesk's Consensus 2024 (Shutterstock/CoinDesk)
Raj Mukherjee (left) and Seth Wilks speaking at CoinDesk's Consensus 2024 (Shutterstock/CoinDesk)

The IRS lost two key directors working on crypto initiatives, Seth Wilks and Raj Mukherjee, on Friday after they accepted deferred resignation offers directed by the Department of Government Efficiency.

jwp-player-placeholder
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Verpassen Sie keine weitere Geschichte.Abonnieren Sie noch heute den State of Crypto Newsletter. Alle Newsletter ansehen

Wilks and Mukherjee, who both went to the IRS from the crypto industry, are technically still employees with the IRS for the next few months but they are on paid administrative leave as of Friday afternoon, two people familiar with the situation told CoinDesk. President Donald Trump's administration, through DOGE, offered deferred resignations to a wide array of federal employees earlier this year.

Wilks, who was previously a vice president at TaxBit, and Mukherjee, who was previously ConsenSys and Binance.US' head of tax, both joined the IRS Digital Asset Initiative in February 2024, and were tasked with helping the IRS build a better approach to crypto taxation, including leading the agency’s efforts to build reporting, compliance and enforcement programs for crypto and coordinating with the industry. They worked on an updated 1099-DA tax form shared last summer to aid U.S. persons with filing taxes tied to digital asset transactions.

The pair also oversaw parts of the agency's efforts to draft tax rules for the crypto industry.

The IRS finalized one such rule, imposing certain data collection requirements on decentralized finance (DeFi) brokers, in the waning days of the former Joe Biden administration. This rule was overturned by Congress earlier this year under the Congressional Review Act in a joint resolution signed by Trump.

Wilks was the IRS' executive director of digital asset strategy and development, while Mukherjee was the executive director of the digital assets office.

Both people who spoke to CoinDesk noted that the two officials had accepted voluntary buyouts but that these deferred resignations came ahead of expected cuts to IRS staff.

More than 20,000 IRS employees signed up for the deferred resignation program, the New York Times reported last month, with these employees being put on administrative leave through September.

Cheyenne Ligon contributed reporting.

Nikhilesh De

Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk's managing editor for global policy and regulation, covering regulators, lawmakers and institutions. He owns < $50 in BTC and < $20 in ETH. He won a Gerald Loeb award in the beat reporting category as part of CoinDesk's blockbuster FTX coverage in 2023, and was named the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers' Journalist of the Year in 2020.

Nikhilesh De

Mehr für Sie

Crypto Industry Asks President Trump to Stop JPMorgan’s 'Punitive Tax' on Data Access

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon

A coalition of fintech and crypto trade groups is urging the White House to defend open banking and stop JPMorgan from charging fees to access customer data.

Was Sie wissen sollten:

  • Ten major fintech and crypto trade associations have urged President Trump to stop big banks from imposing fees that could hinder innovation and competition.
  • JPMorgan's plan to charge for access to consumer banking data may debank millions and threaten the adoption of stablecoins and self-custody wallets.
  • The CFPB's open banking rule, which mandates free consumer access to bank data, is under threat as banks have sued to block it, and the CFPB has requested its vacatur.
(
)