Crypto reporting — record checklist
The records a crypto position needs before any return can be prepared, in either direction.
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The records a crypto position needs before any return can be prepared, in either direction.
The document pack
- A full transaction history from every platform used, exported rather than screenshotted
- Wallet addresses and a record of self-custodied holdings
- The platform's country of establishment for each account
- Acquisition cost in your home currency, with the rate and its source
- Records of staking, yield, airdrops and forks, with values at receipt
- Transfers between your own wallets, identified as such
- A departure-day or arrival-day valuation if you changed country
- Any loss event, with contemporaneous evidence of it
Why each of these is asked for
Transfers between your own wallets are not disposals, but without a record they look like them — which is how a reconstructed history overstates gains. The platform's country decides whether the holding falls inside foreign account or foreign property reporting, and the departure-day valuation is the figure most likely to be challenged.
Where to go from here
Send what you have and we will tell you what is missing. A complete pack is usually the difference between a filing that takes a fortnight and one that takes a season. One call now is worth more than a filing season of guessing.
Reviewed against current guidance for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, Cross-Border Tax Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. General guidance only. Your own facts decide the answer, so bring them to a call before relying on this.
Where what is FBAR reporting comes into this file
This is the page to read on what is FBAR reporting. It takes crypto reporting in order — the test that decides who is affected, the returns and forms that follow from it, and a fee quoted in writing before anything starts.
What working with us on crypto reporting — record checklist looks like
A named reviewer on every file
Every page on this site and every file we deliver says which practitioner reviewed it — a person, not a team inbox.
Residence is tested, not assumed
Where you are resident for treaty purposes is a question with a method. We work through it and write down the answer, with the facts it rests on.
The quote comes from your documents
Nothing is priced from a phone call. We read what you have first, then the fee is set — so the scope and the number are agreed on the same evidence.
Late and missed years are ordinary work
An unfiled history is not a reason to wait longer. We assess what is still open and what relief the delay attracts before the first return goes in.
Cross-border situations we are engaged for
A reconstructed history that counted wallet transfers as sales
A holder came to us with a calculation produced by importing every transaction into a tracking tool without identifying which wallets were his own. Every move between his own accounts had been read as a disposal followed by a repurchase, and the resulting gain was far above anything he had actually realised. We mapped the addresses he controlled, matched the outgoing and incoming legs, and removed them from the disposal set. The engagement produced a corrected transaction history with wallet ownership documented, and a calculation that reflected what had genuinely been sold.
An exchange that closed before the records were exported
A client had traded for several years on a platform that ceased operating, taking the account history with it. We rebuilt the position from the sources that survived — bank statements showing fiat in and out, deposit and withdrawal confirmations in old email, and the blockchain record of transfers to and from the addresses he had used. The engagement produced a documented reconstruction, with each figure tied to the evidence behind it and the method stated openly, so that the basis used could be defended rather than merely asserted.
Staking and airdrop receipts with no value recorded
An investor had been staking for some time and had never recorded what the rewards were worth when they arrived, treating the whole position as a single holding. Without a value at receipt there was no cost to set against the eventual disposal. We rebuilt the receipt record from the chain, priced each on its date against a single stated source, and documented the method. The engagement produced a cost base for the staked coin and a recording routine for future receipts, capturing value at the point it arrives rather than at year end.
Departure day valuation for a holder who changed country
Someone who had left the country contacted us in the following year, having kept a careful transaction history but no valuation of the holdings as at the day residency ended. We fixed the date from the supporting evidence, priced every holding at that date from a source we could name and reproduce, and documented both the prices and the reasoning. The engagement produced a departure-day valuation schedule and a cost base for the arrival country, prepared in a form that stands up to being looked at again some years later.
Self-custodied holdings with no platform statement behind them
A client held most of his position in wallets he controlled himself, with only a small residue on exchanges. There were no statements to work from at all. We recorded the addresses, established the acquisition history from the chain and from the fiat payments that funded it, and tied each acquisition to a cost in home currency with the rate source noted. The engagement produced a documented holding schedule for self-custodied coin, which is what the return needed and what the client had assumed could not be produced.
A loss claimed years later without contemporaneous evidence
A holder wanted to claim a loss on coin that had become inaccessible after a platform failure some years earlier. Nothing had been documented at the time. We assembled what existed — correspondence from the period, the public record of the failure, the chain evidence of the deposits and the absence of any withdrawal — and set out the position with its date and its supporting material. The engagement produced a documented loss position with the evidence attached, and a standing instruction to record any future loss event when it happens.
Accounts Reported Late When the Income Already Was
Where the income was on the return and only the account report was missed, a narrow route allows late filing with a reason attached. It is open only while no income is unreported and no examination has begun, which is why it is checked first.
Read how this one runsA Trust Abroad With a Canadian Connection
Contributions or beneficiaries in Canada can bring a foreign trust inside the Canadian net entirely. The analysis is who contributed what and when, because the answer decides whether the trust files here at all.
Read how this one runsAll case studies — every published engagement in one place.
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A holding structure is only as good as its reporting. Foreign affiliates, accrued passive income and distributions each carry their own return, and the penalties on those attach to the form rather than to any tax being owed — so a structure that saves tax can still cost money if the information returns are late.
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