Bitcoin Tax notices from IRS this year for previous years

[ulhaq]

For example, if I make 3 BTC in profit from trading alt coins against BTC in 2017, then does my BTC profit count as a taxable event if I never cashed out?

Any opinions or thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

From this, I think you are not to be made to pay any tax if there were no tax laws at that time because laws are not usually made in retrospect but if at the time maybe there was a bill on the floor and stipulating to capture in retrospect at the document (bill) preamble, then you might have been captured as at the date mentioned in the bill or from the date mentioned.

The IRS will make laws and apply it retrospectively whenever it wants. Does not seem fair, but that is the world we live in.

Regarding "like-kind", this applied to real estate and some other narrow areas. It never applied to crypto.
This does not mean anything regarding altcoin-altcoin trading and paper gains. The IRS has never given any definitive information on it, so everything that everyone (including CPAs) says about crypto taxation is speculation.

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1714949380

[squatter]

Regarding "like-kind", this applied to real estate and some other narrow areas. It never applied to crypto.

I generally agree since that's the position most tax experts have taken. However, some -- like this tax lawyer -- believe the question is debatable regarding pre-2018 altcoin exchanges. He seems to think that section 1031 could apply under some circumstances.

It's true the 2018 tax code limited like-kind exchanges to real estate, but the IRS hasn't officially closed the book on prior years. Like you said, it's all speculation until the IRS and the courts establish case law.