Yes, Coinbase sends tax forms, primarily the new Form 1099-DA starting with the 2025 tax year for sales/exchanges, plus potentially Form 1099-MISC for over $600 in rewards/staking, but it's crucial to use your full transaction history for other taxable events like selling or converting crypto, as forms don't cover everything.
To download your tax reports:
Yes, Coinbase reports certain tax information to the IRS. The platform primarily does this via Form 1099-MISC and Form 1099-DA. Whether or not you receive such forms, you are responsible for filing your taxes correctly.
Coinbase only issues a 1099-MISC if you have received miscellaneous income in excess of $600. They do not release a 1099-B but they do have gain/loss reports that can be downloaded and imported into TurboTax.
It depends. You may not have to “pay” taxes if you simply held cryptocurrency or you only had capital losses (i.e. you lost money on all of your crypto investments). If you had capital gains or crypto income for the year, you will need to pay taxes on your earnings.
Not reporting your cryptocurrency on your taxes can lead to fines, audits, and other penalties. If you haven't reported your cryptocurrency in the past, you can file an amended tax return.
Form 1099-MISC reports any miscellaneous income, like from staking rewards or airdrops. Exchanges generally issue this if you've earned more than $600 in a financial year. If you've made less than this, it's still taxable income you need to report.
If you weren't provided a Form 1099-DA, you can either:
Selling crypto in a year when your income is lower can reduce the taxes you owe. Gifting cryptocurrency is generally not a taxable event for the giver. Crypto IRAs allow you to hold cryptocurrency long-term while deferring or avoiding taxes.
Coinbase will provide tax year 2025 Form 1099-MISC to you no later than mid-February 2026 and you will receive an email when it is ready for download. This is income paid to you by Coinbase, so you may need Coinbase's tax identification number (TIN) when you file your taxes: 45-5293997.
Less Than $600 Coinbase Transactions, Still Report? Yes, even if you receive less than $600 in therefore you do not receive a 1099-K from Coinbase, you are still required to report your Coinbase transactions that are considered income on your U.S. tax return (if you are otherwise required to file a tax return).
Criminal Charges and Prosecution
Tax evasion is punishable by up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000. Willful failure to file can result in up to one year in prison and $25,000 in fines per year. Filing a false return carries penalties of up to three years in prison and $100,000 in fines.
Coinbase sends Form 1099-MISC to the IRS when a customer has earned $600 or more of cryptocurrency income. Coinbase issues forms detailing taxable income to the IRS. In addition, transactions on blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum are publicly visible.
Subpoenas allow the IRS to extract data from cryptocurrency exchanges and financial institutions to investigate tax evasion. Entities like Coinbase, Circle, Kraken, and Bitstamp have been directed to provide comprehensive user account information and transaction records.
Starting with the 2025 tax year, Coinbase is required to issue IRS Form 1099-DA to all US customers. This new form will standardize gross proceeds and cost basis reporting from the sale and exchange of crypto.
If you received crypto as income, you do need to report it as income, even if you didn't sell it. Crypto accounting, simplified. Buy, hold, and breathe easy. You don't have to report crypto on your taxes if you only bought and held it without selling.
If you're holding crypto, there's no immediate gain or loss, so the crypto is not taxed. Tax is only incurred when you sell the asset, and you subsequently receive either cash or units of another cryptocurrency: At this point, you have “realized” the gains, and you have a taxable event.
Hold investments for at least one year and a day before selling. Long-term capital gains are taxed at lower rates than short-term capital gains. Consider crypto tax-loss harvesting. That means offsetting your crypto losses against crypto gains or other capital gains to help reduce your tax bill.
You're required to pay tax on the profit you made from your sale (total sale price of your cryptocurrency minus original purchase price), commensurate with your personal tax bracket. So under these rules, you may be looking at quite a large capital gains tax assessment.
There may be further rounds of questioning if the audit process reveals discrepancies in your tax filings. Typically, auditors look at financial records including your cryptocurrency trade history, bank account statements, credit card payments, loan payments, tuition costs, and insurance payments.
If you held the cryptocurrency for more than one year, any profits are typically long-term capital gains, subject to long-term capital gains tax rates.