March 8, 2023 • 17 mins
Listen to Bloomberg Crypto on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Voyager. Celsius. Genesis. And of course, FTX. All major crypto companies that went bankrupt last year. All names we’ve talked a lot about on this podcast.
But even if you’ve heard of these companies, did you know there’s a tax season quirk for US investors who had digital tokens tied up in accounts on these platforms?
These investors have lost access to these funds while bankruptcy cases wind through the court system, and in some cases they’re going to have pay taxes on those assets.
Bloomberg’s Claire Ballentine, and Bloomberg Tax reporter Lauren Vella join this episode to help crypto investors who are dreading US tax season. We also connect with a crypto investor who owes tax on his losses.
Subscribe to the Bloomberg Crypto Newsletter at https://bloom.bg/cryptonewsletter
This podcast is produced by the Bloomberg Crypto Podcast team: Supervising producer: Vicki Vergolina, Senior Producer: Janet Babin, Producers: Sharon Beriro and Muhammad Farouk, Associate Producers: Mo Andam and Ty Butler. Sound Design/Engineer: Desta Wondirad.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Stacy Marie Ishmel, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,
And this is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg ihot podcast.
It's Wednesday, March eighth. Voyager, Genesis, Celsius, and of course FTX,
(00:31):
all major crypto companies that have filed for bankruptcy, all
companies that we've talked about a lot on this podcast.
But even if you've heard of these platforms, did you
know that there's a tax season quirk facing any US
investors who had digital tokens tied up in these accounts.
That's right, These investors who lost money because these platforms
(00:53):
went bust or filed for bankruptcy me in some cases
have to pay taxes on those ass ss that they
no longer even have access to. Here to walk us
through why some crypto investors are really dreading this US
tax season are Bloomberg Reports to Claire Ballentine and Bloomberg
Tax Report to Lauren Vella. Will also be joined by
(01:14):
Celsius investor Roman Smolkin, who lost money in Celsius and
is now facing a tax bill. It is March in
the United States, and what that means for a lot
of people is they are trying to figure out how
long they can possibly avoid thinking about doing their taxes.
(01:37):
But there is a group of investors who don't have
any choice. They've been thinking about this for a long time,
and it's not looking like it's going to be a
super fun tax season for them. Claire, tell us more
about your reporting on this. So I worked on this
story about people who have crypto holdings that are locked
up on these bankrupt platforms. That was the huge story
last year was that a lot of places where people
(02:00):
were keeping their crypto holdings online either went bankrupt or
had to freeze withdrawals because the companies were having difficulties
so they could no longer access their crypto holdings. That
was bad enough. People had thousands, in some case millions
of dollars worth of their money they could no longer
access and don't know when or if they'll be able to.
(02:21):
What's now happening is that in some cases people are
getting taxed on it, and it's a very specific part
that they're getting taxed on. And so that's if they
have crypto that are on exchanges that has earned interest.
So a lot of the crypto platforms before they went
bankrupt were offering yield products essentially kind of like a
(02:46):
traditional bank. You would put your crypto into accounts, then
the platforms would loan it out, and you earned interest
on that. Interest in general in the US is subject
to income taxes, and that includes interest earned on crypto products.
So for those investors who had money in crypto lending
(03:10):
products and earned interest, they're now being taxed on it
despite not being able to actually access those holdings. So,
if I'm hearing you correctly, these are folks who say
put money in Celsius or in very you know, pick
a bankrupt crypto lender who had offered these products because
(03:31):
there have been several and they thought, wow, okay, that
went poorly for me, And now they're like, wow, this
is going even worse than I thought, because I have
to pay taxes on something that I don't even have
access to. Lauren, how is this possible? Well, I think,
first of all, the whole situation is so convoluted and
ultimately very specific to where your assets are tied up.
(03:55):
For each specific bankruptcy, they're very specific set of rules
in terms of you know, Celsius. I think there is
an issue there where you know We've got a recent
ruling where the judge has said, you know, the coins
placed in these earn accounts or these interest earning accounts,
(04:15):
they belong to the cryptocurrency lender. They do not belong
to the lend. How is this possible? Well, right now,
the IRS has made it very clear, at least for now,
that there's not a lot of leeway for claiming losses
if your sets are tied up in these bankruptcy proceedings.
(04:39):
What they have also said is that basically, just because
your cryptocurrency has plummeted in value and you've still held
onto it does not mean that you get to claim
a Section one sixty five deduction. So let me let
me make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Even if at
(05:00):
the time that I made the deposit my crypto was
worth ten thousand dollars and now it's worth like five
dollars with no zeros, yes, I can't claim any kind
of loss on this. I still have to pay tax
on the ten thousand dollars. Well, well you're not. You're
just not being able to claim a loss basically right now.
So the IRS actually put out guidance in January stating
(05:25):
that even if you see this really major shift in value,
say you had you had a ten thousand dollars value
and it's now a five thousand, or it's not a
one thousand. That is not a worthlessness deduction. You have
held it, you have not sold it. It still has worth.
Even if it went from a dollar to a cent,
(05:46):
it still has worth, and you are not allowed to
claim that kind of deduction. Claire is absolutely right that
if you are generating income from an asset, you are
going to be taxed on it. That is just what
the IRS has said and done. A that is a
regular occurrence. But for now, I think in terms of
(06:07):
what I have heard from tax professionals about people who
have money or assets on these defunct exchanges, it's kind
of a blimbo. It's a wait and see approach. Right now, Well,
it's wait and see except for the having to pay taxes. Yes, yes,
in that very specific in that very specific instance, if
(06:28):
you have let's say, if you're a cruing interest. Now
we're joined by someone today who is one of those
folks in that wait and see and pay taxes situation.
And you know, Roman, you described yourself as a former
crypto enthusiast who has been personally affected by Celsius, you know,
halting withdrawals and then filing for bankruptcy. Can you share
(06:51):
a little bit about what that's been like. Yeah. So
I purchased my first bitcoin almost ten years ago or
early early on, back when they were in a hundreds
and not the tens of towns of a price, and
I deposited most of my crypto holdings with Celsius a
couple of years ago because they were paying very significant
interest rates on just holding the money there, so it
(07:13):
seemed like a win win. I was just holding onto
my crypto and I was looking forward to getting the
interest from them. Now, majority of my personal crypto was
actually not in things like bitcoin or ethereum. It was
actually stable coins, so I saw those as completely risk free,
and they were offering somewhere between nine and like twelve
percent interest on stable coins. Celsius and similar platforms. It
(07:37):
wasn't just Celia Celsia's Next, so several other platforms were
doing the same thing. So Celsius seemed to be the biggest,
so I chose them to put the majority of my
funds into. It was literally my emergency fund, basically all
the cash I had on hand, I put with them
because of how well how much interests they were offering.
So when Lauren mentioned, you know, the value dropping, I'm like, well,
(07:59):
in my case, you really didn't drop, because the biggest
percentage was stable coins, and they held their value. Except
the judge ruled that now those stable coins belong too
Celsius and no me and not yet, I am still
having to pay the taxes on the interest that they
theoretically earned in the last couple of years, which I
already paid the year before as well, except now I
(08:22):
don't have access not only to the interest, but also
not to the funds themselves. And it's becoming more and
more clear that come approximately they're estimating in July of
this year, we're going to have some clarity and the
percentages of the people are going to get back. Now,
some people who had very small amounts invested, and that
being five thousand dollars in below, are supposed to get
(08:44):
seventy percent of their investment back, so they're gonna lose
thirty percent, and I'm pretty sure that once they lose
that thirty they should be able to claim it the
following year on their taxes. As a lass. I'm hoping
for the rest of us who had more than five
thousand dollars investment. It's unclear how much we gonna get back,
but the rumors are somewhere between like eighteen and thirty percent.
You know, it was losing seventy majority invest majority. And
(09:08):
there's also very unclear of how it's actually gonna happen,
because I don't think they're gonna give us actual coins back.
It sounds like they're gonna give us equity in this
new company as being formed called literally called New Code,
as if they couldn't come up with a better name.
I'm like, okay, I didn't put my stable coins and
my emergency funds into Celsius too. At the end, end
up as a stockholder in some new company who will
(09:32):
probably go down to zerof all we know, it could
also be the most successful tech startup in you know,
the next ten years. It could happen, But the real
I think the reality is that they were gonna lose
a lot of money and those stocks are going to
go down to zero. So essentially I'm gonna lose all
of the funds that I had invested in Celsius and
still I'm having to come up with money out of
(09:53):
pocket to pay taxes this year, and very unclear of
what's gonna happen next year, hopefully at least it won't
be taxed anymore. It's a very complicated set of realities,
and I think one of the things to your point, Roman,
is it's unclear what the outcomes are and what the
timelines are. Right, So at the moment, you're confronted with
a situation in which you have an imminent thing that
(10:15):
you have to pay. And even if they you know,
various folks involved in this, and there are always out
that's all going to come after the end of tax season,
when you've all you have already paid this amount. Up next,
you'll hear more from my colleagues Claire Valentine and Lauren Vella,
as well as from Celsius investor Roman Smulkin on what
(10:36):
crypto holders in the US are facing this tax season. Lauren, One,
you know possible quirk here is the idea that these
might be branded as you know, like fraudulent, right, and
(10:56):
like what is the carve out for if a court
or to decide, for example, that actually know these folks
don't have a liability. What would have to happen for
that to be true. So I think this is very
specific in the case of FTX, where there are criminal implications.
There's a criminal case against Sam Banquin Freed SPF. Colloquially,
(11:18):
there is a possibility that you know, I've heard from
people in the tax world, specifically in the crypto tax world,
where they're saying the Bernie Madoff scandal and the guidance
that was issued by the IRS following the scandal could
be used as a roadmap or precedent to figure out
how if Sam Bankman Freed is convicted, which that has
(11:41):
not happened yet, right and he has said that he
is not guilty of all charges against him, that could
potentially be a roadmap to claim a loss based on theft.
So unfortunately, for this particular case for FTX investors, I
really it seems like it could be months, it could
be years to see how they could potentially claim these losses.
(12:04):
What some crypto tax professionals digital asset professionals are saying though,
is to make sure that you are keeping very thorough
records to figure out what basis is, what you paid
for the coin and all of your transactions so that
when the time comes, you have that information to provide
to the federal government. I also think that there's an
(12:26):
element of frustration in the timeline of these proceedings. It's
one thing to not know what's going to happen with
your holdings that are locked up on these platforms. It's
another to be told, oh, you still have to pay
interest on it, not even you might have to pay
interest if you one day get the holdings back. The
(12:50):
one thing that isn't slow in this process is the IRS,
and they're coming for the interest income on this. So
I think it's just it's another blow to people who
already are not doing well to begin with with having
their money locked up. And I think you know, in
terms of the tax landscape this year, there's some other
(13:11):
frustrating things happening. Mutual funds that have lost value are
still distributing capital gains taxis that in general isn't fun
for people. This is an extra weird one, and this
is a case where people are having to pay money
sort of needlessly. As we also know, the IRS isn't
the most nimble agency, although we hear they're moving, as
(13:33):
you say, pretty fast. Yeah, Well, they're they're moving fast.
In one regard, they're moving fast to collect the money.
In terms of, you know, taking this into consideration, they
have not as much. I don't think they quite have
a plan for what to do with this. So and
in the meantime, you know, the advice that I heard
at least was that you should pay this. I mean,
you don't want to be faced with the tax audit. Roman.
(13:56):
Do you want to be faced with the tax audit? Yeah,
So that's the advice I I've heard. And as much
as I would hate to pay for it, I'm gonna
have to pay for it and then figure it out
next year. For the last few years, I'm sorry, Lauren,
but I've done turbo tax. But I have a feeling
next year and probably the next few years, I'm gonna
have to go with the tax expert and literally have
(14:17):
them dig in once there's clarity on how those losses
will affect the future filings. And I'm really hoping. I've
heard there's a concept of amending prior returns. I'm really
hoping once all of that has figured out, I can
go back to the last two years when I shared
significant taxes that I paid on that interest that then
in my mind, was stolen from me along with the funds.
(14:40):
Then then claim all of it is a loss and
recoup some of those not just the funds are probably not,
but at least the taxes. So I'm hoping the government
will be fair enough to say, hey, listen, if it
really does look like those funds were stolen from you,
then they I shouldn't have been taxing them to begin with. Broman.
Just as a kind of a closing question for you,
Hindsights twenty twenty, but is there anything you wish you
(15:02):
had done differently, whether it's crypto or all the things
that happened before crypto. When you see those kinds of offerings,
just be very careful on investing or placing your funds
with those kinds of platforms, because those returns truly are unrealistic,
especially on a consistent basis. So yeah, I certainly learned
my lesson. There's more lessons I have learned, as far
(15:22):
as you know. Don't put all your ex in one basket.
Never put your emergency fund in any investment platform, because
its purpose is to be an emergency fund that can
be easily accessed. So into the gamble, I was hoping
to make good interest on it, and I would have
been happy to pay taxes on the interest if I
actually kept my money. But as it worked out, I
lost the money, I lost the interest, I lost my
(15:44):
emergency fund. Ann Tho, you lost all that, but you
gained a tax lawyer, so hopefully you know, hopefully next
year will work out better for you well. Roman, Thank
you so much for sharing your story, and good luck
with the irs and Claire Lauren always a pleasure, Thanks
for having us, Thank you, thank you so much. You
heard from Bloomberg Report to Claire Ballentine and Bloomberg Tax
reporter Lauren Vella. You can find more of their reporting
(16:05):
on the Bloomberg terminal and on Bloomberg dot com. For
even more, checkout or twice weekly newsletter Bloomberg Crypto. This
is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio.
For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(16:26):
or wherever you get your podcasts. Send us your comments,
questions or suggestions for the show to Crypto at Bloomberg
dot net. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky Vergelina.
Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Our producers are Mohammed
Faroupe and Sharon Barrero. Our associate producers are Ty Butler
(16:47):
and Moses Desta. Wonder At is our engineer. Original music
by Leo Sidron. I'm Stacy Marischmaal. We'll be back tomorrow
as The Shop The Boy
I'm Stacy Marie Ishmel, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,
And this is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg ihot podcast.
It's Wednesday, March eighth. Voyager, Genesis, Celsius, and of course FTX,
(00:31):
all major crypto companies that have filed for bankruptcy, all
companies that we've talked about a lot on this podcast.
But even if you've heard of these platforms, did you
know that there's a tax season quirk facing any US
investors who had digital tokens tied up in these accounts.
That's right, These investors who lost money because these platforms
(00:53):
went bust or filed for bankruptcy me in some cases
have to pay taxes on those ass ss that they
no longer even have access to. Here to walk us
through why some crypto investors are really dreading this US
tax season are Bloomberg Reports to Claire Ballentine and Bloomberg
Tax Report to Lauren Vella. Will also be joined by
(01:14):
Celsius investor Roman Smolkin, who lost money in Celsius and
is now facing a tax bill. It is March in
the United States, and what that means for a lot
of people is they are trying to figure out how
long they can possibly avoid thinking about doing their taxes.
(01:37):
But there is a group of investors who don't have
any choice. They've been thinking about this for a long time,
and it's not looking like it's going to be a
super fun tax season for them. Claire, tell us more
about your reporting on this. So I worked on this
story about people who have crypto holdings that are locked
up on these bankrupt platforms. That was the huge story
last year was that a lot of places where people
(02:00):
were keeping their crypto holdings online either went bankrupt or
had to freeze withdrawals because the companies were having difficulties
so they could no longer access their crypto holdings. That
was bad enough. People had thousands, in some case millions
of dollars worth of their money they could no longer
access and don't know when or if they'll be able to.
(02:21):
What's now happening is that in some cases people are
getting taxed on it, and it's a very specific part
that they're getting taxed on. And so that's if they
have crypto that are on exchanges that has earned interest.
So a lot of the crypto platforms before they went
bankrupt were offering yield products essentially kind of like a
(02:46):
traditional bank. You would put your crypto into accounts, then
the platforms would loan it out, and you earned interest
on that. Interest in general in the US is subject
to income taxes, and that includes interest earned on crypto products.
So for those investors who had money in crypto lending
(03:10):
products and earned interest, they're now being taxed on it
despite not being able to actually access those holdings. So,
if I'm hearing you correctly, these are folks who say
put money in Celsius or in very you know, pick
a bankrupt crypto lender who had offered these products because
(03:31):
there have been several and they thought, wow, okay, that
went poorly for me, And now they're like, wow, this
is going even worse than I thought, because I have
to pay taxes on something that I don't even have
access to. Lauren, how is this possible? Well, I think,
first of all, the whole situation is so convoluted and
ultimately very specific to where your assets are tied up.
(03:55):
For each specific bankruptcy, they're very specific set of rules
in terms of you know, Celsius. I think there is
an issue there where you know We've got a recent
ruling where the judge has said, you know, the coins
placed in these earn accounts or these interest earning accounts,
(04:15):
they belong to the cryptocurrency lender. They do not belong
to the lend. How is this possible? Well, right now,
the IRS has made it very clear, at least for now,
that there's not a lot of leeway for claiming losses
if your sets are tied up in these bankruptcy proceedings.
(04:39):
What they have also said is that basically, just because
your cryptocurrency has plummeted in value and you've still held
onto it does not mean that you get to claim
a Section one sixty five deduction. So let me let
me make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Even if at
(05:00):
the time that I made the deposit my crypto was
worth ten thousand dollars and now it's worth like five
dollars with no zeros, yes, I can't claim any kind
of loss on this. I still have to pay tax
on the ten thousand dollars. Well, well you're not. You're
just not being able to claim a loss basically right now.
So the IRS actually put out guidance in January stating
(05:25):
that even if you see this really major shift in value,
say you had you had a ten thousand dollars value
and it's now a five thousand, or it's not a
one thousand. That is not a worthlessness deduction. You have
held it, you have not sold it. It still has worth.
Even if it went from a dollar to a cent,
(05:46):
it still has worth, and you are not allowed to
claim that kind of deduction. Claire is absolutely right that
if you are generating income from an asset, you are
going to be taxed on it. That is just what
the IRS has said and done. A that is a
regular occurrence. But for now, I think in terms of
(06:07):
what I have heard from tax professionals about people who
have money or assets on these defunct exchanges, it's kind
of a blimbo. It's a wait and see approach. Right now, Well,
it's wait and see except for the having to pay taxes. Yes, yes,
in that very specific in that very specific instance, if
(06:28):
you have let's say, if you're a cruing interest. Now
we're joined by someone today who is one of those
folks in that wait and see and pay taxes situation.
And you know, Roman, you described yourself as a former
crypto enthusiast who has been personally affected by Celsius, you know,
halting withdrawals and then filing for bankruptcy. Can you share
(06:51):
a little bit about what that's been like. Yeah. So
I purchased my first bitcoin almost ten years ago or
early early on, back when they were in a hundreds
and not the tens of towns of a price, and
I deposited most of my crypto holdings with Celsius a
couple of years ago because they were paying very significant
interest rates on just holding the money there, so it
(07:13):
seemed like a win win. I was just holding onto
my crypto and I was looking forward to getting the
interest from them. Now, majority of my personal crypto was
actually not in things like bitcoin or ethereum. It was
actually stable coins, so I saw those as completely risk free,
and they were offering somewhere between nine and like twelve
percent interest on stable coins. Celsius and similar platforms. It
(07:37):
wasn't just Celia Celsia's Next, so several other platforms were
doing the same thing. So Celsius seemed to be the biggest,
so I chose them to put the majority of my
funds into. It was literally my emergency fund, basically all
the cash I had on hand, I put with them
because of how well how much interests they were offering.
So when Lauren mentioned, you know, the value dropping, I'm like, well,
(07:59):
in my case, you really didn't drop, because the biggest
percentage was stable coins, and they held their value. Except
the judge ruled that now those stable coins belong too
Celsius and no me and not yet, I am still
having to pay the taxes on the interest that they
theoretically earned in the last couple of years, which I
already paid the year before as well, except now I
(08:22):
don't have access not only to the interest, but also
not to the funds themselves. And it's becoming more and
more clear that come approximately they're estimating in July of
this year, we're going to have some clarity and the
percentages of the people are going to get back. Now,
some people who had very small amounts invested, and that
being five thousand dollars in below, are supposed to get
(08:44):
seventy percent of their investment back, so they're gonna lose
thirty percent, and I'm pretty sure that once they lose
that thirty they should be able to claim it the
following year on their taxes. As a lass. I'm hoping
for the rest of us who had more than five
thousand dollars investment. It's unclear how much we gonna get back,
but the rumors are somewhere between like eighteen and thirty percent.
You know, it was losing seventy majority invest majority. And
(09:08):
there's also very unclear of how it's actually gonna happen,
because I don't think they're gonna give us actual coins back.
It sounds like they're gonna give us equity in this
new company as being formed called literally called New Code,
as if they couldn't come up with a better name.
I'm like, okay, I didn't put my stable coins and
my emergency funds into Celsius too. At the end, end
up as a stockholder in some new company who will
(09:32):
probably go down to zerof all we know, it could
also be the most successful tech startup in you know,
the next ten years. It could happen, But the real
I think the reality is that they were gonna lose
a lot of money and those stocks are going to
go down to zero. So essentially I'm gonna lose all
of the funds that I had invested in Celsius and
still I'm having to come up with money out of
(09:53):
pocket to pay taxes this year, and very unclear of
what's gonna happen next year, hopefully at least it won't
be taxed anymore. It's a very complicated set of realities,
and I think one of the things to your point, Roman,
is it's unclear what the outcomes are and what the
timelines are. Right, So at the moment, you're confronted with
a situation in which you have an imminent thing that
(10:15):
you have to pay. And even if they you know,
various folks involved in this, and there are always out
that's all going to come after the end of tax season,
when you've all you have already paid this amount. Up next,
you'll hear more from my colleagues Claire Valentine and Lauren Vella,
as well as from Celsius investor Roman Smulkin on what
(10:36):
crypto holders in the US are facing this tax season. Lauren, One,
you know possible quirk here is the idea that these
might be branded as you know, like fraudulent, right, and
(10:56):
like what is the carve out for if a court
or to decide, for example, that actually know these folks
don't have a liability. What would have to happen for
that to be true. So I think this is very
specific in the case of FTX, where there are criminal implications.
There's a criminal case against Sam Banquin Freed SPF. Colloquially,
(11:18):
there is a possibility that you know, I've heard from
people in the tax world, specifically in the crypto tax world,
where they're saying the Bernie Madoff scandal and the guidance
that was issued by the IRS following the scandal could
be used as a roadmap or precedent to figure out
how if Sam Bankman Freed is convicted, which that has
(11:41):
not happened yet, right and he has said that he
is not guilty of all charges against him, that could
potentially be a roadmap to claim a loss based on theft.
So unfortunately, for this particular case for FTX investors, I
really it seems like it could be months, it could
be years to see how they could potentially claim these losses.
(12:04):
What some crypto tax professionals digital asset professionals are saying though,
is to make sure that you are keeping very thorough
records to figure out what basis is, what you paid
for the coin and all of your transactions so that
when the time comes, you have that information to provide
to the federal government. I also think that there's an
(12:26):
element of frustration in the timeline of these proceedings. It's
one thing to not know what's going to happen with
your holdings that are locked up on these platforms. It's
another to be told, oh, you still have to pay
interest on it, not even you might have to pay
interest if you one day get the holdings back. The
(12:50):
one thing that isn't slow in this process is the IRS,
and they're coming for the interest income on this. So
I think it's just it's another blow to people who
already are not doing well to begin with with having
their money locked up. And I think you know, in
terms of the tax landscape this year, there's some other
(13:11):
frustrating things happening. Mutual funds that have lost value are
still distributing capital gains taxis that in general isn't fun
for people. This is an extra weird one, and this
is a case where people are having to pay money
sort of needlessly. As we also know, the IRS isn't
the most nimble agency, although we hear they're moving, as
(13:33):
you say, pretty fast. Yeah, Well, they're they're moving fast.
In one regard, they're moving fast to collect the money.
In terms of, you know, taking this into consideration, they
have not as much. I don't think they quite have
a plan for what to do with this. So and
in the meantime, you know, the advice that I heard
at least was that you should pay this. I mean,
you don't want to be faced with the tax audit. Roman.
(13:56):
Do you want to be faced with the tax audit? Yeah,
So that's the advice I I've heard. And as much
as I would hate to pay for it, I'm gonna
have to pay for it and then figure it out
next year. For the last few years, I'm sorry, Lauren,
but I've done turbo tax. But I have a feeling
next year and probably the next few years, I'm gonna
have to go with the tax expert and literally have
(14:17):
them dig in once there's clarity on how those losses
will affect the future filings. And I'm really hoping. I've
heard there's a concept of amending prior returns. I'm really
hoping once all of that has figured out, I can
go back to the last two years when I shared
significant taxes that I paid on that interest that then
in my mind, was stolen from me along with the funds.
(14:40):
Then then claim all of it is a loss and
recoup some of those not just the funds are probably not,
but at least the taxes. So I'm hoping the government
will be fair enough to say, hey, listen, if it
really does look like those funds were stolen from you,
then they I shouldn't have been taxing them to begin with. Broman.
Just as a kind of a closing question for you,
Hindsights twenty twenty, but is there anything you wish you
(15:02):
had done differently, whether it's crypto or all the things
that happened before crypto. When you see those kinds of offerings,
just be very careful on investing or placing your funds
with those kinds of platforms, because those returns truly are unrealistic,
especially on a consistent basis. So yeah, I certainly learned
my lesson. There's more lessons I have learned, as far
(15:22):
as you know. Don't put all your ex in one basket.
Never put your emergency fund in any investment platform, because
its purpose is to be an emergency fund that can
be easily accessed. So into the gamble, I was hoping
to make good interest on it, and I would have
been happy to pay taxes on the interest if I
actually kept my money. But as it worked out, I
lost the money, I lost the interest, I lost my
(15:44):
emergency fund. Ann Tho, you lost all that, but you
gained a tax lawyer, so hopefully you know, hopefully next
year will work out better for you well. Roman, Thank
you so much for sharing your story, and good luck
with the irs and Claire Lauren always a pleasure, Thanks
for having us, Thank you, thank you so much. You
heard from Bloomberg Report to Claire Ballentine and Bloomberg Tax
reporter Lauren Vella. You can find more of their reporting
(16:05):
on the Bloomberg terminal and on Bloomberg dot com. For
even more, checkout or twice weekly newsletter Bloomberg Crypto. This
is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio.
For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(16:26):
or wherever you get your podcasts. Send us your comments,
questions or suggestions for the show to Crypto at Bloomberg
dot net. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky Vergelina.
Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Our producers are Mohammed
Faroupe and Sharon Barrero. Our associate producers are Ty Butler
(16:47):
and Moses Desta. Wonder At is our engineer. Original music
by Leo Sidron. I'm Stacy Marischmaal. We'll be back tomorrow
as The Shop The Boy
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