When you sell, it has 0 basis because you paid nothing for it. It doesn't interact with your bitcoin holdings

This is my personal opinion gleaned from actual professionals. I am not a cpa or tax dude or attorney.

I'm not a physician, doctor, nor an architect. Nor a president, priest, or certified anything. Having that said, here is my opinion:

Anybody asking this stuff on a forum assumes you're not an expert at anything unless you say so. Especially most who claim to be an expert are garbage... just saying, the expectations are not high.

While you, Aggo, arguably have your bright moments and valuable insight, don't assume people will jump on something you say and make significant life/financial changes based on them...
Imagine in court... "but user Aggo on an internet gambling forum said that xxx"

Dunno, maybe if it's a form of reverse indirect narcissism.

Thanks. And let's troll and ridicule everybody here who uses disclaimers in a god damn forum post!

Going to be tricky IMO. One method is to adjust the previous cost basis on your btc and assign a new cost basis for bch. more info here: https://www.oakstonefinancial.com/bl...for-your-taxes

Personally, this method seems like a pita, and I might just eat the cost. I might just assign $0 cost basis on bch and consider it a short term gain. It'll probably cost me $100 or so to report it this way, but make my taxes take an hour or two less. I'll think about it a little more later and hope maybe some tool can handle all this for me when it's closer to tax time.

another article with a different idea: report bch as "other income" ($266* # coins), then use the sale with a $266 short-term cost basis: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatsp.../#1f2a597a3066 - this method seems easy enough to do.

if it makes you feel any better, i regularly chat with someone who is probably the best known bitcoin CPA in the world for retail investors.


IN fact, i have made many posts about bitcoin and taxes recently. I implore you to

1- collate all of those posts
2- forward them to your tax professional for evaluation
3- find out where i was wrong, anywhere (i'm not.)

go suck a dick you dramatic low rent whore.

its 100% gains

You say it so matter of fact, when I linked 2 posts from 2 different CPAs with differing opinions of what you said. So we now have 3+ reasonable options all sourced from professionals. It's clearly a relatively unique scenario open to a couple different interpretations based on similar events. I don't think there's "one true answer" of how to report a blockchain fork from the IRS's perspective, since they've offered no guidance on this specific scenario and the best you can do is apply similar situations, of which there are multiple reasonable options.

there seems to be competing views


1- you gained property at 0 cost
2- you gained income at $266
3- you gained nothing because there was "no change in ownership"


we can all agree that you should err on the side of caution, and that #1 and/or #2 are probably right.

spoke to my contact- he reiterated his position

forbes article is incorrect


you paid nothing for bcash
your cost basis is 0
bitcoin is not an intangible asset in IRS' view-- it is a capital asset
he literally told me to ignore it the article, the premise is incorrect

idk and dont really care to keep dragging this out, just be careful out there.

aggo--

Wasn't the original question though whether it counts as short-term or long-term? Or to put it another way, does the timer start when you owned bitcoin, or when the fork occurred?

Don't want to weigh in because I'm not a CPA and I don't want to give my accountant's opinion without his permission.

It does however seem like common sense that the cost basis in these cases for the "new" fork would be 0.

Where do I find my private keys?

Where do you keep your coins?

I told you to drop the disclaimer garbage, that's self-important bs. Just move on and don't be girlish about it.

The quality of your content is not up for discussion.

Disclaimer:
Do your own due diligence. I'm not a professionally certified psychologist, but I regularly clean the yard and cut the grass of somebody who is.

Search on google "how to find my private keys" + "Name of your wallet/company" where your bitcoins are.

Then you will find out if you

a) control your private keys in the first place
In this case, you should be VERY careful about doing anything, since by the way you ask you seem less experienced. Whatever you do, try it out with baby amounts to test.

b) Somebody else is holding those keys for you.
In this case, find out how you can

b1) move the coins to a place where you own the private key - if you wish to do that or

b2) if you ask because of the BTC/BCH split, find out when and if the company holding your private keys will help you and provide you with the BCH balance

I have done quite a few Bitcoin withdrawals over the last ~2 years but once I receive my money in BlockChain, I immediately send to Circle/Coinbase/GDAX(have used all three, no longer use Circle) where I immediately transfer to my bank once received. On Aug 1st I held zero Bitcoin.

Is there any chance I have bitcoin cash?

As a result of the fork, no.

I need this spelled out for me like a five year old:

1) get private keys from BC.i (how?)
2) open account at new wallet (coinbase?)
3) import private keys (will this move my regular Bitcoin too?)
4) sell bcash (can I go bcash->bitcoin or does it have to go bcash->$->bitcoin?)
5) move bitcoin back to BC.i

?

1) Google is your friend, there are tons of tutorials out there.

What i can tell you is that:
2) Yes, but don't do it at coinbase. Look for an exchange that supports BCH, kraken should be the go-to place

I have a trezor and a nano s ledger
Keep a few on a few sites but was asking in case I ever lose trezor or nano all I have is the recovery seed random words

Something about free byteball tomorrow?

Byteball already happened. Think next one is Sept 6th but less for BTC holders and more for GBYTEs but I don't have a link handy.

You can restore your trezor wallet from the seed words, either in a new trezor or in another wallet, like electrum. I'm assuming it's the same with nano s.

I sold some bitcoin to someone and got paid thru Paypal. I cash out my Paypal. A couple weeks later I have a negative Paypal balance. Paypal said the buyer's bank was disputing the transaction. I email Paypal telling them a transaction most certainly took place. They had some sort of ruling and the buyer's bank ruled in favor of the buyer. Now Paypal says I owe them the amount. How should I proceed?

pay it, thats all you can do. theres articles all over the internet about accepting payment for BTC from paypal. hopefully it wasnt too expensive of a lesson.

Actually thought it was tomorrow, like the next one, have to go searching a bit here then.

Send them all your email correspondence with the person including the bitcoin tx id. They will still likely lol you.