In Matt Metras’ excellent article on tax reporting for clients who receive settlements from the Celsius bankruptcy, he says “It’s unclear if this section could apply to digital asset bankruptcies for a variety of reasons outside the scope of this article.” Matt provides an example of the IRS’ preferred method of accounting for settlement proceeds as published on the Taxpayer Advocate’s website. Matt also notes that the TAS tax tip lacks any citations to substantial authority. It may or may not be taxpayer friendly. The articles published by many cryptocurrency exchanges are also citation free and, after a cursory review, seem geared in a larger sense toward helping exchange users account for the settlement accurately on the exchange itself. In this article, I would like to look at the forest of tax law principles that the Celsius bankruptcy settlement puts into play rather than any specific tax reporting tree. Welcome to the jungle.
Small Mistakes With Huge Costs for Your Client’s Tax Returns
We’ve all been there. A client walks into your office and, somewhere in the conversation, you realize that a seemingly minor oversight, a missed deadline, a form nobody filed, an election nobody mentioned, has spiraled into a five- or six-figure tax problem. In my years of practice, some of the most expensive mistakes I’ve seen weren’t the result of aggressive planning gone wrong. They were small, quiet errors. The kind that happens when a deadline slips, an election isn’t made, or a form gets overlooked entirely. The tax code is unforgiving in these situations, and the IRS has little sympathy for “I didn’t know.” This article walks through some of the most common, and most costly, small mistakes that can devastate your client’s tax situation, along with practical guidance for avoiding them.
