Crypto tax situation - Read post 1 for thread banned users

kevinbad2010 wrote: »

No tax so until you change it into fiat and have surpassed the 1.3k per year exception,

Not quite. If you convert from one crypto to another, that's a disposal and if you realise a gain at that point you have to account for CGT. If you sell your crypto at all that's a disposal; it doesn't matter whether you are selling it for fiat or not.

But if you just buy a holding of crypto and sit on it while it (hopefully!) appreciates, there's no liablity to income tax or CGT.

If you have a signficant accrued gain, it might be worth realising up to 1,300 of it each year to "use up' your annual small gainst exemption and reduce the chargeable gain when you finally sell out.

Gooey Looey wrote: »

How about buying crypto.com coin and earning on it? Is this liable for CGT? I'm considering throwing a few grand at it

If you are referring to their “Crypto Earn” service, what they are paying you is technically interest.

So IMO the interests should be subject to DIRT, but I would seek advice from a tax advisor to confirm (although I’d say both tax advisors and Revenue might not be 100% clear on this).

And of course if you sell the principal back for euros then it is subject to CGT.

Lex Luthor wrote: »

ok so you pay CGT on gains made in currency

so lets say for example hypothetically and asking for a friend, you plan to buy a car in UK for 30k GBP

You buy the sterling well in advance for a really good rate of €1 - €0.94

Many months later you buy the car when the rate for the £ has strengthened to £1 - €0.83

DO you pay on that?

Also, what happens in another hypothetical scenario you lose your job and decide you need your euros back and cash in the GBP for Euros
You get more euros back, are you liable?

It says here that “any currency other than the euro is an asset for the purposes of capital gains tax. Accordingly, a chargeable gain/allowable loss can arise to a person buying and selling foreign currency otherwise than in the course of trade”.

I honestly have no clue, but the last bit might provide an exemption for the car purchase if it is considered a trade for the purpose of this legislation.

If you are selling back to euros though, the wording seems pretty clear to me in saying CGT would be due (but I’d say for most people the 1270 euros CGT exemption will cover most if not all currency exchange operations they will ever do).

Waternotsoda wrote: »

What type of financial records should be kept? The only paper record I have is my payment from my debit card to Coinbase which will appear on my Credit Card Statement.

I don’t use Coinbase, but I assume there is a way to export your transactions history? (for each purchase/sale: the date, the quantity and the price)

griffdaddy wrote: »

If you have a debit card with coinbase and use it to purchase things either in euro or another currency, with the conversion happening at the coinbase side, is that liable for cgt?

Yes it is, although I suspect many people either don’t know or are ignoring it (and many are also within their rights not to pay as they fall within the €1270 CGT exemption).

I believe that technically, even if let’s set someone swaps 1 Bitcoin for 5 gold ounces with someone else, both of these people are potentially liable for CGT (as per the CGT legislation, swapping an asset for another one is the same as disposing of the asset for cash).

unkel wrote: »

Yes the government will bail you out on that. You will be able to offset your capital loss against future capital gains forever, until you are back in the black. Not until then will you have to start paying CGT

So what you are saying is: buy something that Justin Sun is involved in, and use your bags to offset CGT gains? Big if true.

Lex Luthor wrote: »

how traceable is this?

I guess everyone has their own personal and ethical views on CGT

if you bought 2BTC in the first week of march when they were about €9000ea and then 2 weeks later after the crash they were worth €4k and decided to sell, you are at a loss of 10k, I dont see the govt bailing you out in this instance but if you did the reverse 2 weeks later and bought at 4k and sold now for that 10k profit they would want your profits tax

when using a debit card, lets say you buy 1 BTC and then some day you decide to spend it on goods using that 1 BTC, it should be treated the same

Yes, if you take 100% of the risk and make some profit, they want 33% (the 2nd highest rate in the whole world, with lowest threshold in the world).

If you take 100% of the risk and lose it all, you're on your own.

Grumpypants wrote: »

What happens if say Tesla start accepting butcoin and instead of cashing out you just buy a Tesla.

You are disposing of the bitcoin that you use to purchase the car and, if any gain has accrued in euro terms it is chargeable. (Similarly, if any loss has accrued it is deductible.)

If you're carrying on a trade or business which involves making purchases or sales in foreign currencies, and you are buying and temporarily holding foreign currencies for this business, I think Revenue will usually ignore incidental gains and losses due to to currency price movements. (And, even if they didn't, over time the gains and losses would tend to offset each other anyway.) But if you are buying and holding foreign currency as an investment, speculating that the price of the currency (in euro terms) will rise, then when you dispose of the foreign currency that's a chargeable disposal. It makes no difference whether you dispose of it for euro, for a different foreign currency or for any other asset (like a car).

Lex Luthor wrote: »

so if you make a capital loss eg 10yrs ago after selling a house to the tune of €90k, this gets carried on indefinetly until you may need it in the future?

who tracks this?

I thought the gain had to be made first and then if you get a loss in subsequent years, you get a rebate

As far as I know, any year you make a loss you can file it in your tax return. And then it gets carried over and can be deduced from any future gain (I think you have to keep track yourself and calculate manually).

Better have someone less confirm this though as to be honest I’ve never done it myself.

Lex Luthor wrote: »

. . . if you bought 2BTC in the first week of march when they were about €9000ea and then 2 weeks later after the crash they were worth €4k and decided to sell, you are at a loss of 10k, I dont see the govt bailing you out in this instance but if you did the reverse 2 weeks later and bought at 4k and sold now for that 10k profit they would want your profits tax

The loss on the first disposal can be offset against the gain on the second, so you'd pay no CGT in that instance.

Lex Luthor wrote: »

when using a debit card, lets say you buy 1 BTC and then some day you decide to spend it on goods using that 1 BTC, it should be treated the same

If you buy foreign currency and then the same day use it to purchase goods, (a) there is generally no signficant gain or loss, because currency prices don't usually move that fast, and (b) if you bought the currency for the purpose of buying the goods, that's not a capital transaction and doesn't attract CGT anyway. You do this every time you charge a purchase to your card in a currency other than euros, if you think about it.

If you buy currency as an investment, and hold it in the hope that it appreciates in value, and then later dispose of it, that's a capital transaction and on disposal the gain (or loss, if you have been unlucky) is chargeable. Losses can be offset against gains arising in the same year and, if your losses for the year exceed your gains, you can carry forward the excess losses and set them off against gains arising in future years.

I've been working and living abroad (EU), planning on moving back to Ireland in the next year or two.

I kept my Irish savings account open, and now and then having been selling off some crypto and moving it to my Irish savings a/c. I'm not earning money other than that into my Irish account, and have no PAYE contributions for the past 4 years or so.

I want to get on top of my crypto tax now, and make sure I pay whatever is due. Does my situation of earning and living abroad have any impact on how I should go about this? I was moving this into my Irish savings and not my foreign account to take advantage of the €1,270 CGT exemption.

I've been using Electrum wallet, which seems to give a good calculation of profit/loss made on each transaction, so that documentation side of things should be easier. My question is more from the point of view of what forms I should use to report it.

WashYourHands wrote: »

I had this debate recently. The person I was talking to has some crypto that he bought about 4 years ago. BTC (from EUR to BTC) and ETH (from some of the BTC to ETH). He said he doesn't have to pay any CGT until either goes back to Euro. I tried to argue that he would have to pay CGT when going from BTC to ETH but I didn't know enough to explain it. Is his ETH essentially worthless (legally) now since he hasn't made his tax payments?

Only a matter of time before revenue compiles a list of every irish citizen whos suspected of being involved in crytocurrency and conducts audits more invasive than an alien abduction cavity probing....

Stormington wrote: »

Good luck to them doing this while there's double-figure unemployment levels on the cards.

And people holding bags of ****coins to 0 to offset CGT gains.

Well surely they'll be desperate to squeeze as much tax as possible from any source?

The IRS in the states have been really on the case of anything to do with crypto since 2017.

Lex Luthor wrote: »

That’s like buying a bag of apples and trading half for a few oranges. How do you pay a tax liability from an orange even though it has value to someone

You don't have a tax liability from the oranges. You have a tax liablity from the gain (if any) accruing on the disposal of the apples.

Suppose you buy the apples at 10c each. Later, you exchange three apples for 2 oranges. Oranges, at this time, cost 20c each. So, the acquisition cost of your three apples, at 10c each, was 30c. You have disposed of them for 2 oranges, whose value (in total) is 40c (since it would have cost you 40c to buy two oranges). Your gain on disposal of the apples is (40c - 30c 10c. Your CGT is calculated on that gain.

It's not that hard.

Other posters have explained clearly that GGT is due, but in case anyone still thinks exchanging one asset for another doesn’t trigger CGT, Revenue’s website is pretty clear (just read the bits I highlighted and it is crystal clear): https://www.revenue.ie/en/gains-gifts-and-inheritance/transfering-an-asset/index.aspx

Revenue wrote:

CGT is a tax you pay on any capital gain (profit) made when you dispose of an asset.

Revenue wrote:

An asset is something of value that can be converted into cash. You have disposed of an asset if you have:
* sold it
* gifted it
* exchanged it
* got compensation or insurance for it.

Lex Luthor wrote: »

Keeping track of the BTC trades is a nightmare

It can be a pain for sure, but the taxman doesn’t care ...

Actually, the same way some stock brokers calculate this automatically and provide a nice report at the end of the year; there is probably a market for exchanges to to that with crypto transactions (that could provide an incentive for people to strictly transact on their platform - but yes I know this brings more centralisation).

Lex Luthor wrote: »

Keeping track of the BTC trades is a nightmare

Bookkeeping for lots of business activities is an utter pain. Lots of enterprises have to employ people full-time to do nothing else.

But suck it up. If you don't want to keep the books, you don't have to make the trades. If you do want to make the trades then keep the books because, tax liabilities aside, you'll then have some clue as to how much money you are making or losing, which is presumably a thing that interests you.

Lex Luthor wrote: »

I'll have an overall value of profit/loss at the end of each year which is no issue, but keeping track of each individual trade is more time consuming than the transaction itself

It's often true of bookkeeping that accounting for a transaction takes more time than executing the transaction. That's not saying much in this case, since a trade in cryptocurrency can be executed almost instantly.

But, in any event, this isn't the revenue's problem. If you're engaged in a taxable activity then the cost of tax compliance, whether in time or money, is something you need to factor into your decision about whether it's worth your while to engage in the activity.

As far as I can see it's not that big a deal. Unless your chosen trading platform is utterly crapulous it will generate for you a record of all your transactions which includes, for each transaction, the crypto disposed of, the number of units disposed of, the crypto acquired, the number of units acquired and the date. The only additional datum you need for each transaction is the market value, in euros, on the date of the transaction, of a unit of the crypto acquired. If your trading platform doesn't supply that information you can add it yourself. This is probably most conveniently done at the time you enter into each transaction, but if you prefer you can wait until tax return time and add all the market values in at that point. Given all the data, calculating the gains and losses is not difficult and, if you set up a spreadsheet to do it in your first year, doing it in subsequent years should be a doddle.

seannash wrote: »

Apologies if this has been covered before but as some exchanges allow you to transfer your Fiat (Once you've converted your crypto to it) could you transfer this Fiat to your own mortgage account or any loans you have a payment schedule set up for.
Would there be a trail for this? I'm thinking I could pull out cash to use for my daily expenses (Shopping, petrol, entertainment etc etc) and transfer mortgage payments from the exchange to the accounts associated with the mortgage or loan

Some exchanges are restricting withdrawals to accounts from which you have deposited money before, which would block what you want to do as you can’t make a deposit from your mortgage account. Another blocker could be whether your back provides an IBAN for your mortgage account which can receive funds from external accounts not under your name (I am not sure what banks do related to this).

So the answer is: it might be possible but there are quite a few reasons why the exchange or the bank could prevent it.

But in any case I don’t get why you would do this with regards to this thread. Whether you leave cash on the exchange, withdraw it to a current account, or withdraw it to a mortgage account doesn’t make any difference in terms of tax liability (CGT is due when you sell assets, not when you withdraw cash).