How Do I Record Contract Trades?

A 'contract trade' is a catch all term that refers to any trading activity not considered 'spot' trading. The purpose of this article is to explain how to record contract trades in your TaxBit account. For more detail on what we mean by contract trading and its tax implications, feel free to check out our article on the subject, found HERE. 

Prerequisites

Before we go any further, it's really important to acknowledge that unless your closed positions are settled in crypto, you don't need to represent them in your TaxBit account. We support certain types of FIAT transactions on our platform, so you can choose to include those FIAT settled positions in your account if you wish.

Whether or not you include them in your TaxBit account, you'll absolutely want to sum up the FIAT income you received from your settled profitable positions and add that number to your taxable income for the year. 

If your positions are settled in crypto or they are settled in FIAT and you want to use TaxBit to help you sum those transactions, then read on! This guide will walk you through how to bring those transactions into your account.

Adding Contract Trades To Your Account

Generally speaking, you'll be using CSV exports to bring those contract trading transactions into your account. To give us the context we need to format those transactions correctly, we'll need the following information:

• Crypto Deposit and Withdrawals (Transfer In/Transfer Out History)
• Your FIAT > Crypto conversions (Buy/Sell History)
• Spot Trading History (if you have any)

Depending on the platform, you may already have this information in your account from previous API connections or CSV uploads. In addition to that contextual information, we'll always need a PnL (Profit and Loss) to report any of your contract trading activity. PnL Activity will be recorded with the "Income" and "Expense" transaction types in TaxBit:

• Profits: Income
• Losses: Expense
• Fees: Expense 

Attached to this article are examples of what a 'PnL Statement' export should look like. These examples are from FTX, so exports from other platforms may look a little different, but they will likely contain similar information. 

Once you at least have your Contract Trading and PnL exports, you can format and import the data into your TaxBit account.

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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