U.S. Treasury issues new Cryptocurrency tax rules

• The IRS has set up a tax reporting framework for cryptocurrency brokers, which will be implemented in 2025.
• The framework does not include decentralised finance and non-hosted wallets, although rules for those will come later in the year.

Under the new framework, crypto brokers, hosted wallet services, and digital asset outlets must file 1099 tax forms to document gains earned on their users’ digital assets. These assets will include coins, tokens, NFTs, and stablecoin transactions above a certain threshold.

The new regime does not yet include tax reporting processes for proceeds and earnings from decentralised finance activities or non-hosted wallets, as it is focused on large centralised firms. However, regulations for DeFi will reportedly come later in the year and will take effect along with the rest of the framework in January 2025.

The regime stipulates that users who earn less than $10,000 worth of stablecoins in a year are exempted from reporting. Furthermore, crypto brokers can report stablecoin sales as an aggregate, although they must report sophisticated, high-volume individual sales separately.

For NFTs, users are exempt from reporting NFT sales proceeds under $600 in a financial year.

Starting 2026, crypto brokers will be required to maintain a cost basis record for all assets, including the prices at which users purchase their assets. Real estate transactions settled with crypto will also be reported using the fair market value of the digital assets used.