I can't believe they're going to leave it as is. One of their documents mentioned that they were waiting for feedback and hopefully they get plenty of it.
The bit about forks and airdrops simply doesn't make enough sense at present. Fuck knows who wrote it but they need slapping upside the head.
'If you did not receive any cryptocurrency when an airdrop event occurred, you do not recognize income as you did not receive the property.'
What airdrop does not give you crypto? And what is the EXACT definition of receiving?
That was likely written with exchanges in mind. If an exchange credited you with forks/airdrops based on your balance, then receipt occurs.
My reading of the guidelines is that if you controlled your own keys, the fair market value of hard forks was $0 at the time of receipt since no markets existed yet. Futures markets or chain split tokens are different assets.
“One unfortunate consequence of this guidance is that third parties can now create tax reporting obligations for you by simply forking a network whose coins you own, or foisting on you an unwanted airdrop.”
The first situation probably isn't possible. A hard fork falls under the situation I outlined above.
Centralized airdrops -- like when a developer team air drops ERC-20 tokens into ETH public addresses -- could result in unwanted tax liabilities, though. Fortunately, these airdrops are probably worth far too little for the IRS to pay any attention.