At some point the IRS may have to change their tune. The tax code is malleable even though it does require Herculean effort to change. Cryptocurrency and more generalized blockchain platforms such as ethereum could provide leverage to change minds if they could begin to demonstrate their value on the fraud prevention front to regulatory agencies. I work at a nonprofit startup focused on creating systems for pooling and streamlining the administrative overhead for nonprofits, and we consistently find that the regulatory obstacle course nonprofits are faced with is related to a fundamental problem of trust created by a few bad actors. A "triple entry" linked accounting platform built on the blockchain as described at https://medium.com/the-block-chain/creating-the-everything-l... could radically alter the nonprofit sector by making fraud much harder to do, though getting a critical mass to adopt it would be challenging. Not to mention the underlying engineering challenge.

Well, if you're compliant in the US right now, you are keeping track of the value of every coin anyway. My own experience is that not many companies are doing this -- at CoinLab it was a very large effort, and included head-scratching conversations with accountants as to whether or not specific identification vs FIFO/LIFO was most appropriate.

So, yes, pain in the ass, however, one that you incur whenever you spend coins if you're compliant.

You're absolutely correct. It will be difficult for them. It will be even more difficult depending if they've just purchased the coin or have held it for a while.