NEW YORK—When accountant Zach Gordon gets calls from clients about how to handle cryptocurrency on their taxes, there is a common theme.
“They have absolutely no idea,” says Gordon, a principal with Grassi Advisors & Accountants in Westchester, New York.
It is not entirely their fault. The whole arena of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin is so novel and fast-growing that even the Internal Revenue Service itself has long been playing catch-up about how exactly to treat it on U.S. tax returns.
That being said, the guidance is becoming clearer, just as cryptocurrency adoption is growing. According to the Pew Research Center, 16 percent of U.S. adults now say they have invested in, traded, or otherwise used cryptocurrencies.
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