Bitcoin and crypto losses can be used to offset other types of capital gains for tax purposes. This article discusses how to handle your losses and the important things that you need to keep in mind for your crypto taxes.
Losses on Crypto and Bitcoin trades offset other capital gains
For tax purposes, selling crypto is treated the same as selling any other type of capital asset — stocks, bonds, property etc. This means that you either realize a capital gain or a capital loss anytime you sell Bitcoin or other crypto. When you realize a capital gain (you sold your crypto for more than you purchased it for), you owe a tax on the dollar amount of the gain. However, when you sell your crypto for less than you purchased it for, you incur a capital loss, and you can use this loss to offset gains from other trades or even a gain from the sale of other property like your stocks in your portfolio.
Unfortunately in the crypto landscape that we are currently experiencing, there are plenty of losses to go around, and it is wise to file these capital losses in order to reduce your taxable income.
Net capital losses up to $3,000 can be deducted against other types of income
Whenever your total capital gains and losses for the year add up to a negative number, you incur a net capital loss. If the net capital loss is less than or equal to $3,000 ($1,500 if you are married and filing a separate tax return), then that entire capital loss can be used to offset other types of income — like the income from your job.
If your losses exceed $3,000, then the amount over $3,000 will be rolled forward to the next tax year.
What does this look like in real life?
Let’s go through an example to paint a clear picture.
Let’s say you started 2018 doing really well as a crypto trader. You made $5,000 trading Bitcoin and Ethereum. Once August rolled around and the markets took a turn for the worse, you got hit hard and the value of your portfolio dropped significantly. You ended up selling out of all of your positions and took a $7,000 loss. From here, you would be able to harvest a $2,000 loss for the year. This loss would be deducted from your taxable income for the year. Let’s say you made $50,000 on the year in income. With this loss, only $48,000 of that income would be taxable.
The IRS Form 8949
To get more detailed on how to report this crypto on your taxes, you would need to report each trade that you made on the IRS form 8949, Sales and Dispositions of other Capital Assets. For every trade that you made during the year, you list the amount of crypto traded, the price traded at, the date traded, the cost basis for the trade, and the capital gain or loss that occurred. Continue to list every trade from the year on this form and total up the net losses at the bottom — they should be equal to $2,000.
What if I made a ton of trades during the year?
A lot of crypto enthusiasts trade quite often. If you haven’t been keeping a record of the dates of your trades, the dollar value amounts that you bought and sold your crypto for, and the capital gains/losses from those trades, this reporting process, and creating your 8949 form can become a huge headache. If this is a scenario that you are faced with (don’t worry we were in the exact same boat), it could be beneficial to leverage CryptoTrader.Tax to automatically create your 8949 for you. All you have to do is import your trades.
A lot of traders are turning to expensive “crypto accountants” to create their 8949’s for them and to handle the whole tax process. While having a good CPA is important, most of them are simply using automated crypto tax services to do these calculations and then charging you a whole lot more on the other end. Do your research before forking over hundreds of dollars.
Once you have your total capital gains and losses added together on the form 8949, you transfer the total amount onto your 1040 Schedule D.
One idea for saving you money is to use an automated crypto tax service to calculate your total capital gains/losses on all of your trades for the year and have it auto-generate your 8949. Then take this data and give it to your CPA or simply plug it into TurboTax to take care of the remainder of your taxes. This way you can skip the upcharge of an expensive “crypto accountant”.
Ideally you are a wizard of a crypto trader, and you won’t have to harvest any losses from your trading activity. However, if you have losses, be sure you are at least taking advantage of them and saving money where you can.
If you’re looking to stay in the good graces of the IRS, simply use CrytpoTrader.Tax to generate your complete capital gains report. This report can be uploaded to TurboTax or given to your tax professional to ensure that you stay compliant.
Originally published at www.cryptotrader.tax.