Greetings, fellow Hive-strayans! 👋
It's that time of year -- tax time -- and I was just wanting to seek some guidance from those who may be more learned than I...
So. I'm one of the very few crypto-people who only has HIVE and doesn't dabble in other coins. Unless you count a few random things on Hive-Engine, but all of that gets returned to me as HIVE eventually anyway.
Earlier this year I made the undesirable choice of "disposing" of some of my HIVE. I traded it for some Bitcoin and then sold that for some Australian dollars, then proceeded to pay a couple of bills that were glaring at me. Yay. 😞
Unfortunately, due to that choice, now the ATO is aware that I'm involved in Cryptocurrency and demands I declare my Capital Gains Taxes.
My issue is... how? 😆 What do all of you ladies/gents/peoples do at tax time?
I haven't bought any HIVE, so I can't declare when I obtained the asset in that more normalised manner. I do receive my rewards each day. So I guess I could go back through my wallet and make two thousand or so individual declarations, each one of anywhere between 0.01 - 60 HIVE.
I know the exact time and days I made my two "disposals" so I can tell them that, at least -- I naively assumed that I'd just tell them what I withdrew and class those dollar amounts as what I gained.
I've scoured the ATO website and have read all of their cryptocurrency articles... and have ended up more confused than before because they speak in Legalese instead of Average Person. They have information about staking at least, but it's illegible to my feeble understanding and there's also nothing when it comes to the type of reward system we have here.
What if I had nothing staked and just received my rewards and turned it all liquid ASAP? In that case, the staking section would have nothing to do with any of this. I stake most of mine, but, there's the "what if."
So, I'm not too sure how to lodge my tax return this year... and I thought I'd ask what it is you guys do! 😁 ...before I end up on a three hour phone-call, on hold for most of that time, trying to seek advice via a customer service agent who probably doesn't know the answer.
Don't worry, I'm not intending on taking any advice given as "Be all, end all!!!! Such-n-such told me this, so this is what I shall do!!!!!" but any help or guidance would be amazing. And I'm sure it would be a great help for any other Australian seeking the same type of knowledge/anecdotal experience now or in the future.
Thank you for reading my babble, and thanks in advance for any guidance. ❤️
From my understanding you look at how much AUD originally went into crypto. put that number down, The ignoring whats in the middle, how much aud did you get out ?
The ATO want capital gains on the difference between the 2 amount, ie your profit in ATO eyes. Not advice, just how I guess they will approach it.
That's exactly why I was confused. No AUD went into crypto. ALL of my crypto is from rewards.
After talking to the ATO, this kind of system (ignoring the staking) is considered a Personal Use Asset. Once withdrawn into AUD however that's what they want to know. Earn $15000 worth of HIVE and leave it in your wallet? Doesn't matter. Withdraw $200 of it? That's the number.
The bills were huge enough for them to notice/care D:
I should be too far under threshold for them to care about at the moment but I'm going to have to confuse myself with their horrible non-explanations out of sheer paranoia now XD
I assumed that I was under the threshold too! Haha..
In November, when Hive was at it's lowest, and I'm still SO SAD about this. But I withdrew 6000 HIVE for a measly $871. I was moving town and needed the extra money for a break lease fee, truck hire, internet cancellation, etc. It was so disheartening selling so much for so little, but I needed the extra funds at the time.
Then in April I withdrew 1000 HIVE for the slightly better price of $900, which went towards various day-to-day things like groceries and my son's birthday trampoline.
So apparently $1700ish is enough for them to start sending me emails, text messages, and have big red writing on my MyGov Tax Submission saying to declare my CGT because: they knoooOOooOOoow
lol.
Ugh. XD
Ahhh whaaaaaat okay I don’t really know how cgt works so that would have stuffed me as well 😵
I probably can’t help too much since I’m in the US, however here I know the standard is to declare the Hive you earn as income at the time you claim rewards, and then declare the capital gains/losses at the point it is exchanged for another coin/fiat.
One thing that may help you while sorting out records though… There’s a little known Hive front end called Waivio and I just saw a post regarding some pretty nifty reporting tools they built. Fair warning, I haven’t tried it yet myself, but it could be quite handy for pulling together all your transactions and figuring how much income you actually earned from Hive!
https://peakd.com/waivio/@grampo/have-you-tried-reporting-hive-income-on-your-taxes
Cheers! 🍻 I'll have a look at Waivio and see what it can do! It might just be the thing I'm after to sort through all of this.
This is my first time declaring my crypto, as I didn't realise it was necessary since I hadn't actually bought any with fiat. So now I'm all over the place trying to work everything out so everything goes swimmingly.
I was also under the impression that since the worth of my asset is under $10,000 AUD, it would be classed as a hobby under the Australian tax system and therefore unnecessary to declare. It's all a pain in the butt!
Ugh, taxes. A while ago, I wrote an article about it for how I'm now handeling it, but that's based on what I managed to find out about the rules here in the Netherlands. Basically, I now write down the values in fiat of whatever I claim when I claim it, which means I only claim my rewards once or twice a month most times, because it's such a hassle. I can declare all of that as extra income later, whether I turn it into fiat or not. Aside from that, I have to write down my crypto holdings in fiat value on the first of january to declare that as assets. So my Hive (and Steemit) account value, exchange values and wallet values.
I'm not sure if this helps you with your issue at all, but maybe some of it will look familiar, or it might help you get organized in the future.
It's all fun and games, until you earn enough to actually cash out and make the 'government' aware. They are certainly great at making things complicated!
That might be something I'll need to start doing! I've been talking to some guy from the ATO on their website, and my last question was something to the tune of: "Well, let's say I have 1000 transactions. Some of which are 10cents, others may be $40. Do I need to put every one of those transactions as their own separate CGT acquisition?"
Anndddd am currently waiting for an answer. And I'm bracing myself for the inevitable, "Yep. That's exactly what you got to do." I mean, sure, if they really want to read all 1000 odd tiny acquisitions. LOL.
Apparently if I didn't turn it into AUD, HIVE acquisition in the "rewards" manner (not the staking manner) is simply a Personal Use Asset and doesn't need to be declared. So that's good to know, at least.
Still. Ugh.
How do you stop yourself from claiming every day? XD I see the button and I'm just, push it, more power. POWER! 😅 Guess I'd better stop doing that, just for this. Forevermore.
Yeah, the money's rolling in all day and all night here on Hive! Very frustrating if you have to write that all down, so I'm hoping the moments of claiming are enough. It's the only workable thing really. And yes, it is frustrating to wait with claiming! If there's a big reward waiting, I do sometimes claim inbetween, but then I have to write it all down again. Ugh, so much work!
I'm still not sure about Hive Power. I mean, I have to declare all of my crypto holdings, but Hive and HBD are crypto's, HP isn't... although it's basically the same as Hive, you just don't have instant access to it. So confusing...
G'day, I'm a little in the same boat. I think I'll be using an accountant that knows how to handle crypto this year just to be on the safe side and see what they do for next time
I hope it all goes well for you!
After talking to the ATO, the rewards system here on Hive is considered Personal Use and doesn't need to be declared as CGT until it's sold for Australian dollars. In that case it's super easy! Say you sold a bunch today for $100, that's literally the amount you declare.
Unfortunately it's when you get to the Staking rewards it gets a bit more annoying. Then, if you're like a lot of other crypto-people (thankfully I'm not! Just Hive!) you need to know the whens and prices of every other crypto you've traded as well. At least most exchanges have that info handy.
Good luck with your return!!
Yeah nice. Thanks for the reply and in letting me know your situation update.
I really hope the ato's crypto policies get updated and simplified as this slap dash one they've put together is as clear as mud
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