With year-end approaching, it's a good time to make sure your tax house is in order. It's especially important for crypto investors, given a new IRS brokerage reporting requirement covering transactions after Jan. 1, 2025.
The IRS generally treats crypto like property, similar to stocks or real estate, so selling crypto can trigger a capital gain or loss. And while crypto investors should have been keeping good records all along, the new reporting requirement gives them an even more compelling reason. That's because brokerages now have to send what's known as a Form 1099-DA. For tax year 2025, they're required to report gross proceeds for each digital asset sale the broker processes. In 2026 and beyond, it's mandatory for brokers to report gross proceeds and cost basis information for covered securities.
Because brokers haven't had to issue 1099s for selling or exchanging crypto in the past, it was easier for people to act as tax cheats, said Ric Edelman, financial advisor, author and founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals. "Many people mistakenly believe that there's no reporting obligation," Edelman said.
As crypto investors do their tax planning for a year which saw bitcoin rise to new heights, but more recently endure a huge selloff that has shaved over $40,000 off its record price, it's important to understand the new, stricter recordkeeping requirements.
Let's say you bought ethereum for $1,500 and paid a $50 transaction fee, your cost basis would be $1,550, according to an example provided by Coinbase . "Essentially, your gain or loss is the difference between the gross proceeds and the cost basis. If you sold that 1 ETH for $2,000, your taxable gain would be $450 ($2,000 - $1,550)."
Get your crypto recordkeeping in order now
Brokers are required to report the cost basis information for tax year 2026, and if you haven't been keeping good records thus far, you're going to have to start. "It's a taxpayer's responsibility to track and substantiate whatever cost basis they're providing," said Daniel Hauffe, senior manager for tax policy and advocacy at The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
For many crypto investors, this will be complicated, especially if they transferred their tokens to a broker after holding them elsewhere and haven't kept careful records. In that case, the broker won't have the amount you purchased the crypto for; the broker would only know the price when you transferred it, Hauffe said.
Ideally, taxpayers should try to iron out these issues now, before brokers are required to report the basis, and that may require speaking to a qualified tax professional.
Crypto investors who have been keeping track of their holdings haphazardly in the past should also consider hiring a tax crypto recordkeeping provider. There are a number of these services, including ProfitStance, Taxbit, TokenTax and ZenLedger.
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