Field Notes on Crypto Tax Folder

The folder was created. It was named something sensible, or something like crypto-tax-2022, and it was placed in a location that seemed logical at the time.

Then came the question of what to put in it.

The first thing required was a list of platforms. This list turned out to be harder to produce than expected, because the platforms had accumulated over several years during which the act of joining a new platform was very easy and the act of maintaining a record of having joined was not a priority. Some platforms were remembered immediately. Others surfaced later in the process. At least one was remembered only when a tax professional asked a question that could only be answered by someone who had used that specific platform.

This is the opening condition of the crypto tax folder: the organizational intent is present, the organizational task is larger than expected, and the expected primary challenge of the task has been replaced by an unexpected prior challenge.

Uncertainty may be converted into certainty by checking the same number again under identical conditions.

The primary challenge was supposed to be calculating amounts. The prior challenge was producing a complete list of the places from which amounts would need to be calculated. These are not the same challenge.

After the list of platforms was assembled, or approximately assembled, the question of transaction histories arose. Some platforms provided this easily. Some platforms had changed their export format since the relevant transactions. One platform had been acquired. Another had stopped operating in the relevant jurisdiction.

The hardest part of the crypto tax folder was not the taxes. It was the audit of how many places the money had been.

By late 2022, the question of crypto taxes had acquired a specific emotional character that was different from its character in earlier years. The earlier years had been optimistic and the tax question had been a problem of prosperity. The current year had a different emotional character, and the tax question was now a problem of documentation under conditions that no longer felt worth documenting.

The folder exists.

The folder is not finished.