You only need to timestamp your intent. The allocations must be determined before you file your taxes.
Discussion
That’s probably fair to say. FWIW we have gotten little guidance and the recommendation is to have a pre 2025 record of your holdings on a wallet by wallet basis. Who fuckin knows man. I really don’t have a clue what’s going to matter down the road. Hopefully we get some proper legislation and guidance so we don’t have to talk in circles anymore on about tyrannical uncertainty
Yeah they could have released a form or granted everyone automatic safe harbor. Or going further back they could have worked out cost basis guidelines a decade ago and made them clear. Instead we get this compliance nightmare.
The thuggishness of this whole process really grinds my gears. They are changing the rules post facto and demanding a blank check to bill you in the past based on rules that didn't exist yet. The only way out is to follow vague and Byzantine instructions and produce "proof" that you were paying attention to the right guidelines at the right time.
If only there were instructions really at all. As a lawyer I’m very very comfortable with onerous legal processes but what grinds my gears is the compete absence of instruction or process. For example we don’t even know what “safe harbor” means in this context.
If you are using universal allocation you need to prove wallet balance as of Jan 1, which is where people get ideas about screenshots.
As someone who understands a little bit about how bitcoin works this part just hurts my brain.
I’m with you honestly. But keep in mind this is about more than bitcoin it applies to all digital assets and a lot of degenerate shit coiners and people in DAOs and nfts have a much more complicated situation. For me btc in cold storage should be trivially easy to prove date of ownership down the road if needs be