Crypto taxBeginner
Why your full exchange history matters
The tax on a sale depends on what you paid for the coins, and that purchase is often in an older file or on another exchange.
- What it means
- Without the older buy, the purchase price is missing and the whole sale can look like profit.
- What to watch
- Whether you have the full history from every exchange you used, not only this year's file, and any coins that arrived without a purchase.
- How Compass-Alpha uses it
- The tax overview reads your uploaded exchange files and its report check (Pro) shows sales that are still missing a purchase price.
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More in Crypto tax
Is swapping crypto taxed?
Swapping one coin for another, like BTC for ETH, is a taxable moment in some countries and not in others.
DAC8: exchanges report to the tax office
DAC8 is an EU directive that makes crypto platforms collect data on their users' transactions and report it to tax authorities.
FIFO and cost basis
FIFO, first in, first out, matches each coin you sell with your earliest purchases, and that purchase price is the cost used to work out the gain.