[otoburb]

>>Could the IRS do me a solid and send me what the capital gains on my crypto currency are? I'll pay the taxes--I just don't want to have to calculate the taxes.

Unlike stocks which seem to be entirely traded on exchanges, bitcoin could have been obtained through mining (unlikely, but possible) or a true person-to-person trade/barter. In order to calculate capital gains, one needs to know the cost-basis (i.e. the price you paid to acquire the asset). If bitcoins are deposited into your Coinbase BTC account, there's no way for Coinbase to know what you paid for them, hence difficult/impossible for them to calculate the capital gains.

[jmalicki]

"Unlike stocks which seem to be entirely traded on exchanges" - no.

You could have bought stock directly from the company, in an IPO or secondary offering (where it does not go through an exchange), from an individual or broker not intermediated by an exchange, etc.

You can keep stock certificates in a safe deposit box, and then later transfer them into your brokerage account, they have no idea what you paid for them.

This is a solved problem, cryptocurrency is not special. If they have the cost basis they can tell you, if not, they can leave it blank.

[otoburb]

Thanks for the clarification. To whit, the few retail equity US and Canadian trading platforms I've used (Schwab's, Interactive Brokers, Scottrade before they became TD Ameritrade, Questrade) also do not provide an explicit feature that purports to calculate capital gains, so Coinbase seems to be exhibiting feature parity with equity retail exchanges. Coinbase and other retail equity trading platforms do provide an easy to calculate gains/losses made from your trades, but as we are both saying, gains/losses shown in the accounts may not necessarily correspond to the actual capital gains at the end of the year in certain situations.

>>This is a solved problem, cryptocurrency is not special. If they have the cost basis they can tell you, if not, they can leave it blank.

We're in agreement - this is a solved problem that the retail investor or their accountant needs to calculate manually via aggregation of the entire lifecycle of the asset(s) to properly account for capital gains (or losses).

[patio11]

To whit, the few retail equity US and Canadian trading platforms I've used (Schwab's, Interactive Brokers, Scottrade before they became TD Ameritrade, Questrade) also do not provide an explicit feature that purports to calculate capital gains

You should probably call the IRS tipline and say "I think [Schwab] isn't filing their 1099-Bs, you know the thing which reports cost bases and short-term/long-term capital gains for retail investors, and accordingly they're on the hook for billions of dollars of penalties, but to keep the math easy just write me a check for a billion dollars rather than what the law actually says you owe me for this hot tip."

Or, in the alternative, you could look again.

[otoburb]

>>Or, in the alternative, you could look again.

I checked again, and you're right. Interactive Brokers is the only platform I still infrequently use but it does have a list of pre-filled tax forms available for download. Worksheet 8949 is also pre-filled, but this is probably where one would need to submit a revised version if previous cost-basis amounts need to be adjusted as in the specific edge cases we're talking about above.

Coinbase seems to have sent 1099-K documents to eligible customers which isn't as detailed as 1099-Bs since I believe the Ks only report gross transaction volumes over $20K[1].

[1] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/understanding-your-1099-k

[jmalicki]

Your memory may be due to this information being new as of 2011 for most brokers.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

[sbierwagen]

First result for "schwab 1099-B": https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investing/retirement_an...

[mcherm]

> To whit, the few retail equity US and Canadian trading platforms I've used (Schwab's, Interactive Brokers, Scottrade before they became TD Ameritrade, Questrade) also do not provide an explicit feature that purports to calculate capital gains

I cannot account for the discrepancy, but I use Charles Schwab, and it absolutely DOES calculate and display capital gains. In cases where I have moved a security into the account (rather than purchasing it directly within the account) I have had to provide original cost basis information for them in order for the calculations to be correct.

[godelski]

Couldn't you use the cost of operation? I figure you could either keep track of it yourself or use a standard depreciation rate on equipment and electricity costs (since probably few people tracked that). Would be like running a business, which you kind of are as a miner. But you do make a point that this is a difficult thing and coinbase can't really track it.

BUT from what I understand, people leave a lot of coins on exchanges and never transfer them back to personal wallets. Coinbase can track that.

[jmalicki]

"Couldn't you use the cost of operation?" - that's pretty inconsistent with other IRS rules... you probably need to convince the IRS you're mining bitcoin as a business with the intent to profit with all the proof that entails, and then it's likely deductible as a business expense, not a cost basis, similar to how margin interest is not part of your cost basis for buying a stock.

See "Basis of Assets" https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p551.pdf and "Investment Income and Expenses" https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p550.pdf

None of that covers cryptocurrency directly yet, but looking at how more traditional investments are treated can inspire you to try to do your taxes in the spirit of the rules to avoid likely problems.

[panarky]

It's the taxpayer's responsibility to substantiate any cost basis greater than zero.