I come to you in desperate need of advice on a tax/cryptocurrency problem.
Summary:
- Last year, I received some bonus tokens from a cryptocurrency company for participating in their loyalty program. It required nearly zero effort from me, just that I hold/don't sell my tokens. I also received bonus tokens from another cryptocurrency company whom I again, did pretty much no work for (it was an early purchaser bonus). All is good and well, and despite my portfolio balance being devastated by the -90% drop in value, I still hold on to my tokens to continue receiving the bonuses. Fast forward to this week.. I open up my mail to find not one, but two 1099-MISCs. I open it to find that I apparently have received about $100k in "nonemployee/other income" total from these two companies, and that I'm expected to pay taxes on this amount even though I have not touched a single one of these tokens.
To bring more light to my financial situation.. I'm currently unemployed, in California. I have about $15k to tide me over while I'm searching for jobs, and that's including my portfolio value. I held these tokens under the assumption that they were cost-basis of zero like most airdrops, and that I would have to pay the full capital gains tax upon sale/trade of the tokens. Now, I'm at a point where I feel like I'm going to have to liquidate all of my portfolio (after holding it all the way down to near-nothing) as well as my savings just to be able to pay off *half* of my taxes (I did a rough estimate and it looks like it'll be around $30k).
Am I totally screwed? I'm freaking out and have no idea what to do about this. I felt like crap for even holding it down to these prices in the first place, and now I'm getting punished even more with a tax bill I likely won't be able to afford. I assume they are using the price at which the token was trading when they sent me them, but since I haven't touched them, doesn't that mean I haven't realized a gain or loss?
Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks for your time.
Submitted February 13, 2019 at 02:21AM by WINNERSONLY2018 http://bit.ly/2E7JOYY
