Crypto Tax Guide for Businesses: Reporting, Calculating, Complying

How to Handle Crypto Taxes for Your Business in 2025

Crypto has changed how businesses move money, offering faster payments and global reach with fewer middlemen. However, even with all that innovation, crypto payments still meet the same reality as everything else: taxes.

For businesses that use, operate, and earn in crypto, understanding how crypto tax works is necessary to not only remain compliant but also stay organized and on top of your crypto spend and operations. Whether accepting digital assets, paying vendors, or just holding crypto like Bitcoin in your balance, knowing how the IRS views these transactions and operations can help you make smart financial decisions.

With Slash, handle crypto with stablecoin transfers, including USDC, USDT, and USDSL, while integrating with accounting, real-time tracking tools, and spend oversight control that’ll make the difference for financial teams, especially if your business operates in both crypto and fiat. Keep reading to learn more. ¹﹐⁴

How Crypto Is Taxed

The IRS doesn’t treat cryptocurrency like traditional currency. Instead, cryptocurrencies are considered property, meaning they’re subject to capital gains tax rules.

This distinction may impact your crypto tax depending on when you sell, trade, or use crypto as a form of payment. In each case, you are triggering a taxable event dependent on:

How long you’ve held the crypto assets. This will impact your capital gains calculations. A gain from a sale of property held for less than a year is treated as a short-term capital gain and is taxed at the ordinary income rate; a gain from a sale of property held for more than a year is treated as a long-term capital gain and is often taxed at a lower rate.
Your cost basis. The original price you paid for the cryptocurrency, plus any related fees, is your cost basis for calculating capital gains or losses. This can be broken down into the formula: Proceeds - Cost Basis = Capital Gains or Loss.

If your business receives crypto through payments, staking rewards, or mining, that income is taxed as ordinary income at the fair market value of the crypto when it’s received. Later, when you sell or convert it to fiat currency, you’ll also recognize a gain or loss based on how the value changed. Keeping clean, accurate records with helpful platforms like Slash can help you monitor your crypto assets and any changes in gains or losses.

Which Crypto Transactions are Taxable

Most operations and transactions that involve creating or changing the value of your crypto are taxable; however, this doesn’t encompass all aspects of your crypto holdings and wallet. Here are examples of instances where your crypto operation is taxable:

Selling crypto for fiat (e.g., converting BTC to USD).
Trading one crypto for another (Ethereum for USDT).
Receiving crypto as payment for goods or services.
Earning staking or mining rewards.
Selling NFTs or other digital assets at a profit.

Each of these events can affect your tax liability, depending on your holding period, cost basis, and overall profit or loss.

For businesses using Slash, you can operate with stablecoins, including USDC, USDT, and USDS, and access tools for on- and off-ramping to fiat. Because stablecoins are pegged to the dollar, they simplify valuation and tax reporting while still qualifying as crypto assets for compliance purposes. Slash offers real-time tracking and reporting alongside your fiat banking, plus quickly syncs with your accounting software through APIs and integrations so you never have to leave the Slash dashboard to keep up with your taxes.

Which Crypto Transactions are Non-Taxable

Not every cryptocurrency activity is taxable; these include:

Buying and holding crypto without selling it.
Transferring crypto between your own wallets (no change in ownership).
Donating crypto to an eligible charity.
Gifting small amounts under IRS thresholds.

If no sale, trade, or exchange took place, and no new value was realized, you’re in the clear for tax reporting. However, it’s still essential to keep accurate records of these transactions to make it easier to verify what’s taxable later.

Calculating Crypto Gains and Losses

Because crypto is treated like a capital asset, every sale, trade, or conversion requires you to calculate gains and losses. To calculate your gain or loss, use the formula:

Proceeds - Cost Basis = Capital Gain or Loss

For example:

Your business bought Ethereum at $1,800. This is your cost basis or the original purchase price. Later, you sold it for $2,200, resulting in a capital gain of $400. If you sold your ETH for $1,600 instead, you’d calculate a $200 capital loss.

If you’re using stablecoins, this can be even simpler:

Let’s say your business receives $10,000 in USDC from a client. You later convert that USDC to USD through Slash’s on-ramp when the market value is unchanged, meaning no gain or loss is triggered, assuming the peg remains stable.

If you multiply this by dozens or hundreds of similar transactions for payments, vendor transfers, on- and off-ramps, tracking cost basis can quickly become complex. Slash can simplify this process with every crypto and fiat transaction automatically reported and tracked on your dashboard and accessible to easy sync with QuickBooks and Xero for unified fiat-crypto tax reporting.

Filing Crypto Taxes and Essential IRS Forms

When it’s time to file taxes, businesses report crypto activity through a few key IRS forms:

Form 8949 — Sales and Dispositions of Capital Assets

This lists each sale or trade of crypto, showing your cost basis, sale price, and resulting capital gain or capital loss.

For example, if you accept USDC for a product, then later convert it to USD through Slash. That conversion must appear here, itemized per transaction.

Schedule D — Capital Gains and Losses

This form summarizes totals from Form 8949, separating short- and long-term results to calculate the overall capital gains tax.

For businesses managing both fiat and crypto, Slash’s consolidated view can automatically simplify that separation and give big picture oversight into gains and losses.

Form 1040 — Reporting Income from Crypto Payments

Used to declare ordinary income from crypto payments, mining, or staking rewards. The fair market value on the date received determines how much you’ll pay taxes on.

How to Report Cryptocurrency for Tax Purposes

Generally, cryptocurrency tax reporting may follow the following steps:

1. Gather Transaction Records

This step may be the most tedious if you are not maintaining records accurately through platforms such as Slash. It’s necessary to gather all transaction history, including trades, payments, and conversions from across your crypto exchanges, wallets, payment, and more. If you’re using Slash, these records will be consolidated in one place and organized across entities, making it easier to export or sync to integrated accounting tools.

2. Calculate Capital Gains and Losses

For each event, use the formula: Proceeds – Cost Basis = Gain (or Loss). This determines what’s taxable and whether you owe or can deduct. If you are on- or off-ramping with stablecoins in Slash, you can avoid gains and losses taxation given the stable pegged value of these coins.

3. Determine Your Tax Rate

Apply the correct tax rate based on holding period (short vs. long term) and your business’s tax bracket.

4. Report to the IRS (or Your CPA)

Enter details on the proper forms (8949, Schedule D, 1040) and verify totals. If you’re using software like TurboTax, ensure that it supports cryptocurrency tax reporting.

Maintaining accurate record-keeping can save you time come tax season. Slash can help you too, with accounting, banking, and ease of stablecoins all baked into one intuitive, easy-to-use dashboard.

Manage Crypto Taxes Confidently with Slash

Slash was built for the exact problem most businesses face during tax season: mixing crypto and fiat without mixing up your books.

By connecting your wallets, accounts, and transactions in one dashboard, Slash helps you:

Send, receive, on- and off-ramp USDC, USDT, and USDSL for faster, cheaper, and easier global payments.
Track taxable income from both crypto and traditional fiat payments.
Sync with accounting tools for automatic categorization and reconciliation.
Access real-time reporting for every digital asset and fiat transaction.
Simplify multi-entity management, making intercompany transfers clear for tax filing.
Analytics showing detailed crypto spend across time periods, merchants, categories, and more.

For businesses with more operations outside crypto, Slash can additionally assist you with:

Corporate cards with up to 2% cash back.
Working capital and high-yield treasury.
Business banking tools offering domestic and international ACH, wire transfers, real-time transfers, and SWIFT.

With Slash, free up time and energy with an all-in-one tool, making taxes more straightforward to manage.

Learn more about how Slash can help you with crypto tax reporting at slash.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if I don’t report crypto on my taxes?

Failure to report taxable income from crypto can result in penalties, interest, or audits. The IRS treats crypto like any other capital asset, so undeclared profits or trading activity are still subject to reporting requirements. Slash can help you keep accurate records and stay tax compliant.

How are stablecoins taxed?Stablecoins like USDC, USDT, or USDSL are still considered digital assets. If you sell, convert, or exchange them, any difference between your cost basis and fair market value at the time of the transaction counts as a capital gain or loss. For most Slash users, stablecoins function primarily as operational currency, so reporting is straightforward and easy to do alongside your fiat transactions and banking platform.

How do you lower crypto taxes?

Compliance is necessary for crypto taxes, but there are a few strategies that can reduce what’s liable for taxation, including tax loss harvesting, longer holding periods, and offsetting capital losses.

Do I need to pay taxes if my crypto has increased in value?

Unrealized gains aren’t taxable. However, the moment you convert that profit to fiat or another cryptocurrency, sell, or trade, it becomes reportable.