Sample Crypto Tax Reconstruction Workpaper
Tax year 2024 · US Federal. This is the workpaper a reviewing CPA receives — the full eight-page document is below as a PDF. The portfolio is entirely synthetic, but every figure on this page is pipeline output, not an illustration.
- Taxable disposals
- 1,037
- Net gain
- $59,341.25
- Exception flags
- 753
- Cost-basis method
- FIFO
2,707 Form 8949 lot rows
Crypto-only, before other items
89% auto-matched · 3 need review
Universal scope · USD · UTC
What came back
Six sources, 13,613 raw records across all years, 3,680 of them normalized into 2024 transactions. 180 duplicates removed. What a reviewer wants to know first is not the gain — it is how much of this the software decided on its own, and how loudly it said so.
| Category | Proceeds (gross) | Cost basis | Gain/(loss) | Disposals (8949 rows) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short-term | $281,677.56 | $244,831.39 | $36,457.16 | 713 (2,031) |
| Long-term | $93,425.07 | $70,401.99 | $22,884.09 | 335 (676) |
| Total capital disposals | $375,102.63 | $315,233.38 | $59,341.25 | 1,037 (2,707) |
| Other income (staking, mining, airdrops) | $7,550.74 | 240 |
All 1,037 disposals are included, reported as 2,707 Form 8949 lot rows — one sale consuming three FIFO lots is three rows on the form. 11 disposals span both terms, so the term counts sum to 1,048.
The file we were handed
Four wallets, two exchanges, one of them dead. The FTX export stops in October 2022, which is the interesting part: there is no 2024 activity on it, but the cost basis it establishes is what makes the 2024 lots computable at all.
| Source | Connection | Coverage | Records (2024) | Records (all years) | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coinbase | API | Jan 2022 – Dec 2024 | 1,687 | 5,319 | Complete |
| FTX | Historical export | Jan – Oct 2022 | 0 | 2,365 | Collapsed Nov 2022 — basis history retained |
| Ethereum Wallet 1 | On-chain | Jan 2022 – Dec 2024 | 581 | 1,759 | Complete |
| Ethereum Wallet 2 | On-chain | Jan 2022 – Dec 2024 | 435 | 1,227 | Complete |
| Solana Wallet | On-chain | Jan 2022 – Dec 2024 | 611 | 1,819 | Complete |
| Bitcoin Wallet | On-chain | Jan 2022 – Dec 2024 | 366 | 1,124 | Complete |
What needed a decision
Every flag below is something the pipeline could have quietly guessed at and did not. 89% carry a proposed treatment ready for bulk approval under whatever policy the firm has already agreed; the rest are named individually with the reason.
One disposal, traced end to end
Every number on the filing forms traces back to a specific source row. This is a single LINK sale that consumed three separate FIFO acquisition lots — three rows on Form 8949 for one transaction, which is the shape that gets lost when a tool reports at the transaction level instead of the lot level.
| Lot | Acquired (UTC) | Trade ID | Quantity | Cost basis | Days held |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2023-03-31T07:00:15Z | 5152141c… | 6.712905 LINK | $135.65 | 316 |
| 2 | 2023-04-02T19:01:13Z | 572ed124… | 5.344832 LINK | $145.16 | 314 |
| 3 | 2023-04-02T23:35:04Z | fef5e229… | 5.895089 LINK | $136.09 | 314 |
| Total | 17.952826 LINK | $416.90 | |||
| Lot | Quantity | Allocated proceeds | Cost basis | Fee | Gain/(loss) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6.712905 LINK | $167.09 | $135.65 | $0.25 | $31.19 |
| 2 | 5.344832 LINK | $133.04 | $145.16 | $0.20 | ($12.32) |
| 3 | 5.895089 LINK | $146.74 | $136.09 | $0.22 | $10.42 |
| Total | 17.952826 LINK | $446.87 | $416.90 | $0.67 | $29.29 |
Lot 2 shows a loss because that specific lot was bought slightly higher than lots 1 and 3 — FIFO still allocates it its own true cost rather than an average. The three lot gains sum to $29.29; computed on the unrounded disposal it is $29.30. The one-cent difference is lot-level rounding at two decimals, and the lot rows are what reach the form. That note is in the workpaper too — a reviewer should never have to discover a rounding convention by tying out a total themselves.
If you want this on a real file
Two routes, both of which keep you clear of §7216 — no client data has to leave your firm for either one.