Hey guys. I hope this is the right place to post this. I'd happily be pointed in the right direction. Also, if I don't know wtf I'm talking about, please correct me.

Suppose I have some bitcoins from 6 months ago. It's my understanding that I should wait until a year after receiving them before selling to avoid paying the short term capital gains tax on the increase in their value. If I'd like to cash out from poker sites in the meantime (to eventually get USD in the bank), would I be better off getting checks and wires rather than bitcoins? I can't sell the 'new' bitcoins since it's first-in, first-out, correct? Are there any tricks I should know about? Thanks.

Not 100% but I think if you use/sell the bitcoin <1yr from time you obtained then any money you've made on market movements would be taxed as ordinary income. Beyond a year would be capital gains.

I think you may be able to get away with a wash sale since those only apply to securities but again not an expert and would suggest talkin to one for something like that

If you are in the USA this is partly wrong. Bitcoin is treated as a stock and capital asset.

If you sell your bitcoin from before 1 year, for profit, from purchase date you owe short term capital gains.

If you sell your bitcoin after 1 year, for profit, you owe long term capital gains.

Check out bitcoin.tax; that's what I use to make sense of my bitcoin related taxes.

Regarding FIFO, I don't believe there is a rule requiring you to use that method, but whatever method you do choose, you need to be consistent with it year-to-year.

paid the accountant $800 this year and the advice was to lump the bitcoin gains with poker gains

I'm not an accountant, but I do have an accounting degree and I would say that was pretty expensive/bad advice. If you didn't have significant bitcoin gains, that would certainly be easier, but it's not the correct way to do it. You definitely wouldn't want to do it that way if you did have significant gains, especially if you were in position to realize them as long-term gains.

Wish we could do that in Canada since poker gains aren't taxed, unless you are a professional and it's your main/only source of income.

I'm wondering about this. I have a crypto portfolio I just hold long, but I trade on the side too. So say I have 10 BTC bought at 1k for portfolio. Price rises to $2000. I make a trade with extra cash and buy 10 BTC and sell. Do I know have to pay the gains on my original 10 BTC?

Is this your question?

You buy a bitcoin at 1k. It goes up to 2k.

You buy another bitcoin for 2k and then sell a bitcoin for 2k.

Do you need to pay tax?

ya

Seems like a pointless exercise. I don't think there's a standard to adhere to in terms of FIFO / LIFO or other, but you need to stay consistent.

Rather than doing the buy/sell you could just do nothing and not pay tax if you hold it in bitcoin since you don't have any realizable gains until you convert back to fiat.

I said yes because it was hypothetical, but I actually make money on the trades so say I buy the 2nd bitcoin for $2000 and sell it for $2100. Do I have to pay tax on $100 or $1100?

I'm not an accountant but as long as you stay consistent it shouldn't matter. Could be wrong. At some point youll have to pay tax on all your gains based off each price you bought in at...assuming you convert all by some point.

It depends on the method you use. If you used FIFO, you would pay tax on the $1100 gain. If you used LIFO, or specific identification - highest cost, you'd pay tax on the $100 gain.