Checklist before you report to the IRS
A short, boring list. Boring is the goal: no surprises the week the deadline lands.
- Every source, not just the main exchange
- The four fields every operation needs
- What to do about the years you're unsure about
Starting 2026, exchanges report your sales directly to the IRS via the new Form 1099-DA — and cost basis now has to be tracked per wallet, not pooled across accounts.
Relevant filing: Form 8949 & Schedule D.
1. List every source, including the embarrassing ones
The exchange you use daily is the easy one. The gaps are the old account you stopped using, the wallet on a phone you replaced, the address someone paid you to once. A report built on a partial picture is wrong even if every number in it is right.
Write the list down before you touch any tool. If a source is gone, note that too — a known gap you can explain beats a silent hole.
2. For each operation, you need four things
What asset, what date and time, what quantity, and what the USD value was at that moment. Fees belong in there too — they're part of what the thing actually cost you.
If you have those four for every operation, everything else is arithmetic. If you're missing them, no software can invent them honestly.
3. Decide about the past before the present
If you suspect earlier years were reported wrong — or not at all — that's a conversation with a local accountant, not something a calculation tool fixes retroactively. Getting the current period right doesn't clean up the previous ones.
Handle it in the right order: understand the exposure, then file the current period cleanly.
4. Review the numbers before they leave your hands
Whatever you use, you should be able to open the calculation and see why the total is what it is. A number you can't explain is a number you can't defend to the IRS.
You review, you decide, you file. That order never changes — and no tool should ever file in your name.
