Is Anyone Paying State Taxes on Bitcoin and NFTs?

State taxpayers have been sitting on a mountain of cryptocurrency assets for nearly a decade. According to one estimate, by the tax software and compliance firm Revenue Solutions Inc., 4.7 million California residents have stockpiled crypto assets valued at $56.2 billion, while 2.3 million New Yorkers are hoarding $27.7 billion in crypto.

Are any of them paying capital gains taxes on the accumulated wealth tied up in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether and other digital tokens? And what about those investments in digital art, like Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible tokens?

Tax compliance analysts believe barely a trickle of tax revenue linked to digital assets is flowing in the direction of state revenue departments. The reasons are varied. Revenue agencies and auditors just don’t understand the crypto landscape. States and taxpayers alike lack full guidance from the federal government. Tracking digital asset transactions is difficult, and connecting them to specific taxpayers is even harder.

Fran D’Antonio, solutions sales director at Revenue Solutions, and Miles Fuller, a 15-year veteran of the IRS Office of Chief Counsel who's now director of government solutions at digital tax compliance firm TaxBit, spoke with Bloomberg Tax senior reporter Michael J. Bologna about what they've seen in watching the crypto market closely for several years.

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