CoinTracking - Profit/Loss Portfolio and Tax Reporting for Digital Currencies

[mela65]

Very impressive and detail idea. Those who do not keep a profit and loss details, they always lose. I wish success to you and your project.

[allanster]

I will try to add tx fees in the next 2-3 days to the gains report. This will solve tx fee offsets.

Dario

Dario,

Thank you for reply and addressing issue. I was concerned I misunderstood something so I'm relieved that it is an actual issue.

Allan

[Bermuda666]

Dario,
Thank you for reply and addressing issue. I was concerned I misunderstood something so I'm relieved that it is an actual issue.
Allan

Hey @allanster,
thank you for the response.

We hope we´ll get it accomplished over the next days.

Thanks for submitting your feedback.

Very impressive and detail idea. Those who do not keep a profit and loss details, they always lose. I wish success to you and your project.

Hi @mela65,

thanks for letting us know about your opinion.
We hope you like what we do.

You are totally right, to be a consistent winner it is necessary to keep track of P/L in detail.
Our service offers this possibility.

thanks for your wishes, we really appreciate it. 

Best regards,
Keven

[sgjenks01]

Do you have any information to the contrary for any country?

@ebliever This article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/02/21/if-you-traded-bitcoin-you-should-report-capital-gains-to-the-irs/#2ccc3eb9e3d8 seems like a good one to read if you are an American. The author doesn't specifically address if one were to trade say, from BTC to LTC and back to BTC, and those trades results in a gain of BTC, would that result in a taxable transaction... So, I wrote him and asked (he's a CPA). If he answers me, I will let you know what he says.

[sgjenks01]

@Dario & @Kevin,
I know you are working on this, but for now, when CT figures out the equivalent cost of a transaction (in BTC or USD), are you assuming the transaction time was GMT?

Thanks,

Steve

[Dario3000]

Right now, yes.
But I will adjust the time zones very soon, so it will use your selected time zone.

Dario

[sgjenks01]

Right now, yes.
But I will adjust the time zones very soon, so it will use your selected time zone.

Dario

I've entered a lot of transactions using local time. I input them manually at the time of the trade, so it's not exact, but it's close. When you make this change, will it change any of the times that are already there?

[allanster]

I have entered several mined transactions from 2011 in the form below, but the Tax-free coins and have Short & Long shows nothing long in 2017, why not?

Type: In | Buy: 1 | Cur: BTC | Exchange: Bitcoin-QT | Date: 2011-07-23 21:34:36

[Dario3000]

I have entered several mined transactions from 2011 in the form below, but the Tax-free coins and have Short & Long shows nothing long in 2017, why not?

Type: In | Buy: 1 | Cur: BTC | Exchange: Bitcoin-QT | Date: 2011-07-23 21:34:36

You need to check the "Take into account Deposits & Withdrawals" checkbox on the Short & Long page to add deposits to the list.

[clardalan]

just wanted to thank you for this great site!

It is free, and it works!

It allows my wife to see how we stand

I love this.

[Dario3000]

just wanted to thank you for this great site!

It is free, and it works!

It allows my wife to see how we stand

I love this.

Haha, thanks a lot
I'm glad you and your wife like it.

Best regards,
Dario

[sgjenks01]

Do you have any information to the contrary for any country?

@ebliever This article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/02/21/if-you-traded-bitcoin-you-should-report-capital-gains-to-the-irs/#2ccc3eb9e3d8 seems like a good one to read if you are an American. The author doesn't specifically address if one were to trade say, from BTC to LTC and back to BTC, and those trades results in a gain of BTC, would that result in a taxable transaction... So, I wrote him and asked (he's a CPA). If he answers me, I will let you know what he says.

@ebliever

Here is the question I sent to: Robert A. Green, CPA and writer for Forbes Magazine

Can you please clarify how you think trades among cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin to Litecoin and back) should be reported, if at all? If there was a gain on Bitcoin at the time I traded it for Litecoin, would that be a reportable event?

And here is the answer from: Robert A. Green, CPA and writer for Forbes Magazine

"All trades in crypto currency's are taxable as capital gains on intangible assets."

[sgjenks01]

The values "Buy" and "Sell" are always the real amounts you have paid or received.
The "Fee" field is just a note and does not have an influence on the "Buy" or "Sell" value.

@Dario,
My Ledger Nano S wallet reports the total amount with a note that says "Includes Fees of X currency". So the total amount spent is the amount to report.
But Bitshares reports the amount spent AND a transaction fee in BTS. To get the quantities right, I have to subtract the spend from the currency account and also subtract the fee from the BTS account. So, the total "spend" is not the total amount spent! Plus, they send the transaction to OpenLedger, who takes more fees out to transfer it to wherever you are sending the money. From what I can tell, that amount is not reported anywhere, so the fee is the difference from what left BitShares and what arrived at the destination.
I also have a ETH based wallet (Exodus) that you have to have ETH in the wallet to send any of the other coins anywhere, because it subtracts the amount sent from the account and the fee separately in ETH, which accounts for part of the spend for the transaction.
And I have OmniWallet, which is a BTC based wallet. You have to have BTC in the wallet to send any of the other coins from the wallet, because it deducts the quantity sent from that account and some BTC from the BTC account.
With Bittrex, the spent amount includes the commission and the commission is reported separately, but it is part of the "spent" amount, so it's like the Ledger Nano S in that regard.

So, basically, sometimes the fee is just a note to tell the user how much it cost to do the transaction and so the fee is included in the "spend". Other times the fee really is a fee in addition to the amount reported in the "spend", so the fee has to be reported as a "spend" as well. Then there is the case of Bitshares/OpenLedger which just shows a "disappearance" that is another fee.

Are you saying you have a way for CT to handle these different use cases?
 

[Dario3000]

@sgjenks01:
I have created all imports (API and CSV) to detect the fee correctly.
Some exchanges are including the fee, so we can use those values.
Most of them do not include it, so our system adds or subtracts them automatically from the right value.
But when you are using your own CSV files or the Excel import, you would have to add them correctly if they are not already included.

[sgjenks01]

I have created all imports (API and CSV) to detect the fee correctly.

@Dario3000 That's totally awesome!

[sgjenks01]

Do you have any information to the contrary for any country?

@ebliever This article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/02/21/if-you-traded-bitcoin-you-should-report-capital-gains-to-the-irs/#2ccc3eb9e3d8 seems like a good one to read if you are an American. The author doesn't specifically address if one were to trade say, from BTC to LTC and back to BTC, and those trades results in a gain of BTC, would that result in a taxable transaction... So, I wrote him and asked (he's a CPA). If he answers me, I will let you know what he says.

@ebliever

Here is the question I sent to: Robert A. Green, CPA and writer for Forbes Magazine

Can you please clarify how you think trades among cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin to Litecoin and back) should be reported, if at all? If there was a gain on Bitcoin at the time I traded it for Litecoin, would that be a reportable event?

And here is the answer from: Robert A. Green, CPA and writer for Forbes Magazine

"All trades in crypto currency's are taxable as capital gains on intangible assets."

One more thing, in case you are wondering if Robert Green knows his stuff. I noticed his email had a unique domain and so I went to their website:

https://www.greentradertax.com/

Doing taxes for traders is about all they do.

So, as I said in my original post, believing the urban myth that you don't have to report gains until you trade back into fiat is just that: An urban myth.

I think the theory behind the myth is that as long as you stay in cryptos, the IRS will never know what your gains are. That might be true and then again it might not. Of course all of this only applies to Americans as far as I know. People in other countries should check with a tax accountant. As they say on TV "Your mileage may vary." 

[sgjenks01]

@Dario3000 and Kevin,
Feature Request:
Put cryptos that are pegged to fiat/real currencies in a category by themselves, or even include them in the "real" currencies category. Right now, CT says how much I have invested in cryptos and what my gain is. That seems a bit distorted because I have a fair amount in Tether (USDT) until this selloff blows itself out.

Obviously, this is not a high priority, but it would be nice.

Thanks,

Steve

[ftx]

Thanks for a great website. I'm a premium member who already feels like they got their money's worth, and it's not even tax time yet. I have a couple comments.

First, I have noticed an issue with Ethereum wallet importing lately. My incoming transactions to my wallet are being detected as outgoing. This has been happening both for incoming Eth and for incoming tokens. I have tried deleting the transaction and the automatic import job, but when I re-add the address, the transactions still sometimes come in wrong (and sometimes this fixes them). I wish I could give you a wallet/tx example, but prefer to stay anon.

Secondly, I have some questions about how cointracking handles the various tax accounting methods (FIFO, LIFO, etc).

It seems like the only place to change the method is on the Tax Report page. But the rest of the site appears to only use FIFO to determine things like (un)realized gains; wouldn't that cause inaccuracies? If I report my 2017 (US) taxes using the LIFO method to save some tax on my short-term trades, will my 2018 tax reports in cointracking understand which coins were reported as sold? Ideally, I feel like the calculation method should be a setting which is consistent account-wide.

Thanks again.

[allanster]

@sgjenks01

Thank you so much for taking the time to report your findings on the crypto exchanges. Not the answer I was hoping for, but at least it brings clarity. I was operating under that assumption anyways. Hardly surprising. Good old Uncle Sam... "It's not money but give us more of your money anyways!"

I just bought my first purchase with crypto (Gunbot). How do you handle these transaction entries? Is it an "Out", should there be an "In", or is it a trade to FIAT?

Thanks for any insights!

Allan

[sgjenks01]

@sgjenks01
I just bought my first purchase with crypto (Gunbot). How do you handle these transaction entries? Is it an "Out", should there be an "In", or is it a trade to FIAT
Allan

@Allanster
I'm assuming you bought Gunbot with fiat money. You start with an IN transaction to show you deposited cash somewhere (an Exchange like Bittrex). Then you sell the fiat and buy the Gunbot in a "Trade" type transaction. Also, if it's an exchange that has API trade report exports, you can set it up to do the imports automatically (daily). Any Sell (OUT) side entry should include the fee in the amount sold and you can report the fee in the Fees column if you want to track how much you are paying for the privilege. This would include commissions and miner transaction fees.  I use the "Balance by Exchange" to be sure the balances by exchange by currency matches the amount the exchange/wallet has in it.

Steve