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A comment on The IRS collects data on Coinbase account holders. Parent comment

Re:The IRS collects data on Coinbase account holders by notheguyouthink on Friday March 16, 2018 @10:17AM (#16600789)
> If I buy $10k of Intel, it grows to $15k and I sell it to buy $15k of Google, I owe tax on the $5k gain.

For someone who knows nothing about tax law, if I draw the $15k back from Google to USD, would I pay taxes on the full 15k?

This gains growth tax thing seems to make sense, if there is no taxes when converting it to USD. Eg, if I take 10k and make an additional 10k converting from BTC->ETH and pay taxes on that new 10k, that's reasonable to me if I only pay taxes once on those gains. If however, I withdraw the 20k ETH to USD, and pay taxes on the 20k, then effectively I've paid double taxes on the gained $10k.

Is there a way to handle that in tax law? Or are trades among stocks/etc supposed to be double taxed like that?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The IRS collects data on Coinbase account holders by ISL on Friday March 16, 2018 @10:25AM (#16600849)
Capital gains taxes are paid only upon the gains, not the principal.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The IRS collects data on Coinbase account holders by notheguyouthink on Friday March 16, 2018 @10:42AM (#16600976)
Well that makes me feel better, at least
[ Parent | on HN ]