Mailing In Your IRS Form 8949 After eFiling Your Return
Depending on how many cryptocurrency trades you made during the year, CryptoTrader.Tax may automatically consolidate your 8949 form into a single line. This is in accordance with section 2 of the IRS 8949 instructions, and will happen for those that have many trades (see example of consolidated 8949 below).
8949 — Consolidated
Whenever form 8949 gets consolidated, you receive an “attached statement”, a CSV file called “Short Term Gains” that contains the detailed information for all of your transactions. This CSV contains all necessary reporting details including asset sold, date acquired, date sold, cost basis, proceeds, amount of gain/ loss.
When you are filing your cryptocurrency taxes, you need to include this CSV file detailing your trades. Depending on how you are filing, you may have to mail it in.
E-Filers
When e-Filing your tax return through certain popular software platforms like TaxAct, TurboTax, H&R block, and others, they may only allow you to upload this summarized version of your 8949 without letting you include your detailed CSV detailing every transaction. If this is the case, you should to mail this in to the IRS separately.
Mailing it in
The mailing process is very straightforward — even if it feels a bit outdated.
You should put IRS form 8453, your consolidated 8949, and your printed out Short Term Gains CSV into one envelope. You receive all of these forms automatically from CryptoTrader.Tax.
*You need to mail in these forms no later than 3 business days of your return being accepted.
IRS form 8453
Form 8453 is a simple document that is used to include any additional paperwork needed for certain portions of your tax return that were e-Filed. In this case, you need additional documentation for your 8949, so the final box will be checked on 8453.
IRS instructions for form 8453 can be found here.
These three documents (8453, consolidated 8949, and Short Term Gains CSV) should be printed and mailed to:
Internal Revenue Service
Attn: Shipping and Receiving, 0254
Receipt and Control Branch
Austin, TX 73344–0254
