The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is heading to the desk of President Donald Trump after being approved by the Senate and House of Representatives, defines the act of exchanging one cryptocurrency for another as a "taxable event," says tax attorney Kelsey Lemaster of Goodwin Procter LLP.
He and other lawyers have related that, if the bill is signed into law, it will prevent parties that trade digital assets from deferring the capital gains taxes (CGTs) that they would owe on those virtual currencies if their value increased while in the traders' possession.
Under the legal standard currently in effect, these types of trades have been treated as "like-kind exchanges." This allows the payment of CGTs to be deferred because the properties being swapped are of a similar nature, so long as the exchange is completed within the space of 180 days. If and when this exception ceases to apply to virtual currencies, their trade "would be subject to tax at the time of the exchange," says Steptoe & Johnson LLP tax attorney Lisa Zarlenga.
