1. How are forks treated such as bitcoin cash and gold? i was told there are 2 ways. one is a stock split and the other is like dividend. But stock split means you don't have to claim anything until you sell the bitcoin cash or gold right? But dividend you automatically have to? But if you do, what price are you suppose to claim the bch and bitcoin gold at? The price it came out that day? If so, wouldn't it be same price everyone uses? Or the date you claimed it yourself? Because the process to claim it is not simple.
2. If you never claimed the bitcoin cash or gold in say electrum or whatever wallet you have, do you owe any taxes? Yes they are given to everyone on that day who owns bitcoin but what if someone never claims it?
3. What if you claimed the bitcoin cash and/or gold but just leave it in electron cash or whatever wallet it is at? Are there any tax implications of this? Now what if you move the bitcoin cash or gold to a hardware wallet or exchange BUT DO NOT SELL IT?
4. When someone does sell bch and bitcoin gold, are they going to pay short or long term capital gains? Because if you don't sell it till much later on, would it be long term? What date is used? Date it came out or the date the person claimed it?
5. There is also bitcoin diamond which im not sure if its real fork or not. But most ppl definitely did not claim it. So does that have to be claimed or not? Also there were like 20 plus forks of bitcoin last year like superbitcoin etc but i found out many were no legit. So how would it work there? I mean there is no way anyone could claim these forks so there is no way any tax is due right? Bitcoin cash and gold are the only ones that i know are legit. I dont even know if bitcoin diamond is or not.
6. What about having coins in wallets where they give you things just for holdling it? By say you holding x amount of coin in the wallet gives you so many different coins. But these coins might be worht 1 dollar or 10 dollars total etc. Thus you could convert these coins to btc etc. I assume until you convert it to anotther coin or btc, then nothing is done about it right? I cant imagine because the amounts for thetse other coins they give out are worth very little... like it might be worth pennies but when they add up its dollars which is of course still very little.
I will attempt to answer your questions generally with the caveat that I am not a CPA and I am not a tax attorney. This is based upon my general understanding. For professional advice on tax matters I ask you to contact a CPA or tax attorney.
1. It is my general understanding that cypto-currency of any kind is not taxable as income unless you spend crytpo in place of fiat for goods or services of value, or, you sell the crypto-currency and then convert into fiat. As to capital gains, the difference between the price you purchased and the price at sale is what you are taxed on. As to the details about amounts, timing, dividends, or ways to reduce these taxes with business entities, see your CPA or a business attorney.
2. If someone tells me that they placed one hundred dollars worth of BTC in a wallet of mine and I take that BTC and sell it for fiat or use it to purchase goods or services of value, yes, it is income. If someone, for no consideration, places BTC in a wallet that is not mine and then sends me access codes to retrieve the BTC but I never claim it, it is not mine and therefore not income.
3. Same answers.
4. See a CPA and same answers.
5. Same answers.
6. You are speaking of staking or minting and the above analysis still applies.
Best:
George D. Greenberg, Esq.
www.attorneybitcoin.com
