how do you differentiate from Libra tax that provides this service for free and others like bitcoin.tax ?
Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
61–70 of 164 posts
Re: Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
#62The USA is taxing every trade. In Canada (according to my accountant, at least), cryptocurrency gains are only taxable when "realized" by selling into fiat (capital gains), or spending on goods and services (income). Until that point, they are considered intangible assets and not subject to tax. A USA/non-USA (or taxable trades vs only fiat trades) switch feature would be nice, to account for the different approach t…
>In Canada (according to my accountant, at least), cryptocurrency gains are only taxable when "realized"
I'm not 100% sure about this point. The issue was raised to me before when I was looking into it— crypto-currencies may fall under barter tax law.
https://www.taxtips.ca/personaltax/barter.htm
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/news/newsroom/fact-s...
https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/services/...
Re: Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
#63This looks good, I haven't yet selected a service for doing my crypto taxes this year, maybe I'll give it a try.
A couple of questions on top of your FAQ:
* A list of what exchanges you support would be nice.
* It's not really clear what sort of tax help you get in the free tier.
* It would be nice to see pricing info without having to sign up.
Re: Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
#64Why should I trust you with my data from Coinbase and or my google account and why?
Fair question — For signup, we have three options: get your email from Google, from Coinbase, or use whatever email you want manually. It's up to you whether to use Google/Coinbase or use your own bogus email. The point here is not to gather data about your accounts, but rather just have a way to communicate with you. For tracking & tax, the hope is that we are providing you as a user with enough value (in the form o…
So you have a paid service to calculate a persons taxes. This is offered on https://www.bitcoin.tax . They have a free version that someone can submit their taxes on and also they have a paid version. Also, they can refer you to tax professionals (they deal with happy tax). What advantage do you have over this?
Re: Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
#65Great idea. Highly automatized work that is very hard to do by hand and provides a concrete service.
I admit I find it interesting that Sam Altman is outspoken against crypto yet YC funds these endeavors.
Re: Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
#66The USA is taxing every trade. In Canada (according to my accountant, at least), cryptocurrency gains are only taxable when "realized" by selling into fiat (capital gains), or spending on goods and services (income). Until that point, they are considered intangible assets and not subject to tax. A USA/non-USA (or taxable trades vs only fiat trades) switch feature would be nice, to account for the different approach t…
> In Canada (according to my accountant, at least), cryptocurrency gains are only taxable when "realized" I'm not 100% sure about this point. The issue was raised to me before when I was looking into it— crypto-currencies may fall under barter tax law. https://www.taxtips.ca/personaltax/barter.htm https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/news/newsroom/fact-s... https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/servic…
I will trust my accountant; he is after all, on the hook for how it is reported.
Thanks for posting the links! Taxtips.ca is not an official source, and note they use a ton of "may" be this and "might" be that. I will ignore that page, since they clearly do not know and are not the CRA.
The Canada.ca link is consistent with what my accountant said -- when you use crypto to purchase goods or services, it is treated as income (just like bartering), taxable in equivalent CAD value at the time of the transaction. Trading crypto for other crypto is _not_ a goods or service, since crypto is treated as an intangible asset or commodity.
The third link is also consistent with this view:
"Buying and selling digital currency like a commodity
When you file your taxes you must report any gains or losses from selling or buying digital currencies.
Digital currencies are considered a commodity and are subject to the barter rules of the Income Tax Act. Not reporting income from such transactions is illegal."
In order to be considered a "gain" or a "loss", according to my accountant, the commodity must be realized into fiat money. "Selling or buying" means selling into fiat or buying with fiat. "Bartering" means trading for goods or services -- crypto is not considered to be goods or services.
Re: Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
#67Great idea. Highly automatized work that is very hard to do by hand and provides a concrete service. I admit I find it interesting that Sam Altman is outspoken against crypto yet YC funds these endeavors.
Should always hedge the bets. Just because someone doesn't think somethings a good idea wont keep people from making money.
For instance, I'm still trying to figure out how Docker is better than a full VM. And I personally question cryptocurrencies myself, but I still built a system to track them.
Re: Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
#68Cool. How does the read-only access work?
For Coinbase we request the Read Permission from Coinbase Connect (OAuth2 flow). For the rest of the exchanges we request the user to add their API keys with restrictions for view only access (enforced by the exchanges). The instructions are listed for each exchange when you add them from the wallets page: www.cointracker.io/wallets
Mmmm, I've a similar product to yours (and the myriad of other products like this).
One thing pretty much everyone gets wrong is that many of these exchanges don't actually offer read-only keys, and saying so is wildly inaccurate. Case-in-point is Gemini, which anyone asking for the keys requests Trader level privileges. This simply blocks withdrawing; a malicious actor could still execute a trade if they got ahold of your keys, and due to the nature of it all that's very no bueno for you.
Each and every single one of these products should be badgering exchanges to support true read-only keys (or OAuth, as much as I hate the spec). I've personally emailed each one, and I dunno who else is doing so, but I'd encourage you to alter your documentation slightly and to badger the exchanges as well.
Otherwise, neat product. Congrats on launching. :)
Re: Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
#69Great tool!! Good UX and this integrated view across exchanges is what I was looking for. Thanks guys!!
Re: Launch HN: CoinTracker (YC W18) – Cryptocurrency portfolio and tax manager
#70This looks good, I haven't yet selected a service for doing my crypto taxes this year, maybe I'll give it a try. A couple of questions on top of your FAQ: * A list of what exchanges you support would be nice. * It's not really clear what sort of tax help you get in the free tier. * It would be nice to see pricing info without having to sign up. Also, it's great that you provide a lightweight tracker with no ads ( htt…
The list of exchanges we currently support (we will work on making this clearer): Binance, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Bittrex, Coinbase, Cryptopia, GDAX, Gemini, HitBTC, Kraken, KuCoin, Liqui, Poloniex
Tax free tier & pricing: www.cointracker.io/tax/package
Let me know if anything else is unclear