Please Note: Tax forms for the 2022 tax season will be available for download on February 15th.
When you sell/trade cryptocurrency for a profit or loss, the IRS requires the details of the transaction to be reported on Form 8949, “Sales and Other Dispositions of Capital Assets”. TaxBit generates your 8949 with crypto specifically in mind. We work hard to ensure that you get a form that's as accurate as possible given the data you provide us. With this in mind, it's important to understand what is and is not included on your 8949.
Overview of the form (shown below):
1. Personal Details
2. Part I - Short-Term and Part II - Long-Term
3. Columns
4. Transactions
5. Totals
5. Continued Pages
Personal Details
TaxBit only collects a minimal amount of information from our users. This is not only to minimize security risks, but also to lower the barrier for entry into our software. Not all users require a filled-out 8949 form, and we don't want anyone to feel they have to provide all of their personal information to use TaxBit.
If you would like your name printed on your tax form, we recommend updating the "First Name" and "Last Name" part of your profile in your TaxBit account Settings page. If you need your Social Security number included on your tax form, we recommend writing this in by hand or using a PDF editor to include this on all pages. You will NOT be able to enter your Social Security number anywhere in your TaxBit account.
Part I - Short-Term and Part II - Long-Term
This section of your tax form is used to identify what types of gains or losses are recorded in this section of the form. Your Short Term gains and losses will always be listed in the first part of the form, and your Long Term gains and losses will always be listed in the second part. Most users have far more short term transactions than long term.
Columns
There are multiple columns that will identify different parts of the transaction information that are being reported.
Description of Property - This column will describe what quantity and the ticker symbol of the asset being disposed of.
Date Acquired - This column tells you when the asset was acquired.
Date sold or disposed of - This column will indicate when the asset was off-loaded.
Proceeds - This column expresses the value of the asset that was disposed in a USD value.
Cost or other basis - This column represents the cost of acquiring the asset in a USD value.
FAQ: How is my cost basis determined? This is determined by your Cost Basis Assignment Method
Adjustment - This column is not used for cryptocurrency accounting.
Gain or Loss - This column is the net result of the difference between your cost basis and your proceeds represented in a USD value.
Transactions
Each transaction will include the information listed above, but why this information, and should it line up with your actual transactions?
It's important to understand that this data will likely not match up with stand-alone transaction data. These line items are broken up based on acquisition dates, and it's possible to dispose of a greater amount of an asset than what was acquired in any given acquisition transaction.
TaxBit's tax engine is designed specifically to do this math, and while it can be difficult to track manually, just remember that you can be confident in the breakdown of your provided transaction history. This is what our system was designed to do!
Totals
The total of each section (Long term and Short term) will be displayed at the bottom right hand section of the last page for the section. In some cases, your form may have many pages and you will have to scroll to the last page of the section to see this number.
Continued Pages
When you have more than 14 Long or Short Term lines on your tax form, the continued style pages will automatically be included. These are still a part of the official form from the IRS, but they provide a condensed layout to include additional transactions.
FAQs about 8949s
Why can't I download my 8949?
There are a few reasons you may not be able to download your 8949:
- The number of transactions you have for that tax year are causing it to fail due to a large amount
- The tax year you are trying to download an 8949 form from hasn't ended yet. 8949s are only available for download after the end of that tax year.
Why is my 8949 blank?
There are two reasons your 8949 might be blank:
- You don't have any disposal records in your account for that tax year.
- You have disposal records for that tax year, but none of those disposals have cost basis assigned.
Still have questions? You can interact with our Chatbot by selecting the Chat Widget located at the bottom right side of your screen, or fill out this form HERE to submit a support inquiry request. Our team is happy to help!
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