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  • Cryptocurrency Tax Guide for US Individuals
    • Virtual Currency & Cryptocurrency
    • Who are Recap?
  • CRYPTOCURRENCY TAX
    • Do I Need to Pay Tax on my Crypto?
    • Which Taxes Apply?
      • Capital Gains Tax (CGT)
      • Income Tax
      • Non-Taxable Transactions
    • How Much Tax Will I Pay?
    • Capital Gains Tax
      • Calculating the Capital Gains and Losses
      • Cost Basis Methods
      • Disposal proceeds
        • Non Taxable Events
        • Taxable Events
        • Donating cryptocurrency to a charitable organization
        • Gifting cryptocurrency to another person
    • Income Tax
      • Receiving cryptocurrency from mining
      • Receiving cryptocurrency rewards
      • Forks
      • Airdrops
      • Tax on Tokenswaps and Mainnetswaps
    • Deductibles and Reducing Capital Gains
  • TRANSACTION TYPES
    • 💷Selling Crypto for Fiat
    • 🛍️Purchases using Crypto
    • 🔄Exchanging one crypto for a different crypto
    • 🎗️Donations to Qualified Charities
    • 🎁Gifts
    • 🎈Airdrops
    • 🤝Staking
    • 💸Transfers
    • 🍴Forks
    • ⛏️Mining
    • 👛Employment income
    • 🚨Lost & Stolen Crypto
    • 💧Liquidity Pools
    • 🔮Cryptoasset derivatives (CFDs, Futures and Margin Trading)
    • 💼Crypto Loans
    • 💎Lending Rewards
    • 🪞Reflections Rewards
    • 👥Referral Income
    • 💳Cashback
    • 🎨NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens)
    • 🎮Play-to-earn gaming NFTs
  • Record Keeping
  • Reporting Income and Gains to the IRS and Paying the Tax
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  1. CRYPTOCURRENCY TAX
  2. Which Taxes Apply?

Capital Gains Tax (CGT)

PreviousWhich Taxes Apply?NextIncome Tax

Last updated 3 years ago

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The IRS treats cryptocurrency as property for . Therefore general tax principles that are applicable to property transactions must be applied to .

When you dispose of a cryptocurrency that was held as a capital asset (by selling, trading, or paying for a service or item) you are .

Some of these dispositions include:

A good rule of thumb is that if cryptocurrency is leaving your possession, it likely is a capital event and you will experience a capital gain or loss.

Sales Proceeds – Cost basis = Gain or Loss

  • Description and volume of the cryptocurrency

  • The date you acquired the cryptocurrency

  • The date you sold or otherwise disposed of the cryptocurrency

  • The proceeds (or loss) from the disposition

  • The cost basis of the cryptocurrency (usually this is the cost of the cryptocurrency when it was purchased)

  • The capital gain or loss from disposing of the cryptocurrency

In-depth guidance on Capital Gains Tax:

If purchased crypto increases in value, profits generated from its disposal are treated as a capital gain; if it decreases, the loss on disposal can be deducted against other capital gains .

Depending upon how long you held the cryptocurrency before disposition, you may be subject to a different tax rate. Cryptocurrency held for less than a year when disposed of is considered a , and is taxed as ordinary income under US law. Cryptocurrency held for over a year when it is disposed of is considered a , and is typically taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income.

Capital gains and losses are reported on . This form will list:

Capital gains seem simple to establish, but for those who trade often, it can be tedious and time-consuming – this is where can help. Users connect their exchange accounts or upload CSV data to the app. Once all the user’s data has been collected in the app, they can generate a tax report for the desired tax year.

including non-cryptocurrency capital gains
IRS Form 8949: Sales and other Dispositions of Capital Assets
Recap
Capital Gains Tax
federal tax purposes
crypto transactions
subject to capital gains or losses
Selling cryptocurrency for a fiat currency (USD, GBP, EUR, etc.)
Purchasing goods or services with cryptocurrency
Exchanging one cryptocurrency for another (BTC to ETH, ETH to DOGE, DOGE to SHIB, etc.)
short term gain or loss
long term capital gain or loss