FTX : U.S. IRS claims over $40 billion from bankrupt exchange

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Department of Justice have filed several claims against bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its subsidiaries. These claims total more than $40 billion, which came as a surprise to many.

The claims filed against the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its subsidiaries can be found at Kroll.com. One such claim, addressed to Alameda Research, exceeds $20 billion in itself.

The considerable debts to the U.S. tax authorities could jeopardize the possibility of a possible reopening of the crypto FTX exchange. In such cases, the tax authorities may have priority to be repaid before other creditors of the failed FTX empire.

Is the new FTX management team doing all it can?

In the U.S. and many other countries, the IRS (the state) is usually the first creditor to be paid in such cases, especially when the amounts involved are large.

As a reminder, crypto exchange FTX already owes billions of dollars to its former users who hope to get their money back one day, the announcement that the U.S. IRS is demanding more than $40 billion could seriously jeopardize an eventual refund to the crypto trading platform’s former customers.

Despite this, FTX’s new management team is doing everything it can to recoup funds where it can. Recently, it sold the LedgerX subsidiary for $50 million, despite having acquired it for nearly $300 million in 2021.

After the sale of LedgerX, FTX still has to sell the FTX Japan and FTX Europe crypto exchanges, as well as the Embed stock clearing platform.

It now remains to be seen how FTX and its subsidiaries (West Realm Shires Services, Ledger Holdings Inc (the parent company of LedgerX and LedgerPrime), Blockfolio, North Wireless Dimension Inc, and Alameda Research LLC) will respond to these demands for payment from U.S. tax authorities that exceed $40 billion.