Is swapping one coin for another taxable?

Yes. Because the IRS treats digital assets as property, exchanging one token for another is a disposal of the first at its fair market value rather than a like-kind swap. Enter it here as a sale at the value you received.

Does the cost basis method selector change the result?

No, and that is worth knowing. FIFO, LIFO, and specific identification appear as options, but the calculation uses the basis you type into each row, so the selector records intent rather than re-matching lots against an acquisition history the page does not hold.

How is the short-term rate applied?

A single marginal rate is picked from your annual income and applied to the whole short-term gain. Real short-term gains stack on top of ordinary income and can straddle two brackets, so a large gain will be estimated slightly high or low.

What is the 3.8 percent line?

The Net Investment Income Tax, a surtax on investment income for filers above $200,000, or $250,000 jointly. The tool applies it to the full gain once income passes the threshold, whereas the statute applies it to the lesser of net investment income or the excess over the threshold.

Can I deduct my losses against salary?

Partly, and not on this page. Capital losses offset capital gains first, and up to $3,000 of remaining net loss can reduce ordinary income each year with the excess carried forward. This tool stops at showing losses available.

Does it cover mining, staking, or airdrops?

No. Rewards from mining, staking, and airdrops are generally ordinary income at fair market value when received, and then carry their own basis for a later disposal. Only disposals are modelled here, so income-side events need separate treatment.

Does it produce a Form 8949?

No. There is no export, no form generation, and no filing of any kind. It is an estimator that runs in your browser, and the transactions you type are not saved, transmitted, or retained anywhere after you leave the page.

Do these rules apply outside the United States?

No. The rates, thresholds, and property treatment here are US federal rules in US dollars. TaxEase separately offers paid services for Pakistan under FBR rules, which handle digital assets differently again.

Crypto Tax Calculator for Gains, Losses and Fees 2024

Crypto Tax Calculator for Gains, Losses and Fees 2024The Crypto Tax Calculator is a free browser-based tool that estimates US federal tax across a set of cryptocurrency disposals, one transaction row at a time. The IRS treats digital assets as property, so every sale, swap, or spend is a disposal with a gain or loss, and the holding period decides the rate. You enter the purchase price per coin, sale price per coin, quantity, fees, and holding period for each lot, plus your other annual income and filing status. The tool returns total gain or loss, the short and long-term split, the rates applied, the investment surtax where relevant, and the losses available to offset gains.

What people use it for

Reconciling a year of scattered trades

Someone who traded across two exchanges and a self-custody wallet has a spreadsheet of disposals but no sense of the resulting tax. Adding each lot as a row produces a single total, and separating short-term from long-term makes visible how much of the bill comes from impatient trading rather than from the appreciation itself, which changes next year behaviour.

Planning a tax-loss harvest in December

A holder sitting on one badly underwater position and one profitable one wants to know whether selling both in the same year cancels most of the tax. Entering the pair shows the losses figure alongside the gains and makes the offsetting concrete before any transaction is signed, while there is still time in the tax year to act.

Testing whether to hold past the one-year line

A trader bought at a low price nine months ago and is deciding whether to sell now or wait out the remaining months. Entering the same lot twice, once marked short-term and once long-term, shows the rate difference in dollars, which for a large position is frequently the single biggest lever available anywhere in the return.

Checking exposure to the investment surtax

A software engineer with a high salary and a profitable crypto year wants to know why the estimate is larger than the headline capital gains rate suggests it should be. Entering the real salary triggers the extra 3.8% surtax line, which is a common and unwelcome surprise for earners above the statutory thresholds.

How it works

Set filing status and annual income Enter income excluding crypto. It selects the long-term band, sets the short-term rate, and decides whether the 3.8% investment surtax applies, so an inaccurate figure here moves every result on the page.
Add a transaction row per disposal Press Add Transaction for each sale or swap you need counted. There is no import from an exchange or wallet, so every disposal has to be entered by hand from your own records or exported history.
Fill in prices, quantity, and fees Purchase price per coin, sale price per coin, quantity, and fees. Cost basis becomes price times quantity plus fees, while proceeds are price times quantity minus fees, so fees reduce the taxable gain from both directions.
Choose short or long-term per row Each lot carries its own holding period, so a mixed year is handled correctly. Rows are totalled into separate short-term and long-term pools before their very different rates are applied to each.
Press Calculate and read the split Results show total gain or loss, the short and long-term components, the two rates used, total cost basis, net proceeds, and the losses available for harvesting against future or current gains.

Worked examples

Input: One lot: bought 0.5 BTC at $30,000 per coin, sold at $60,000, fees $100, long-term, income $80,000, single

Result: Cost basis $15,100, proceeds $29,900, gain $14,800, long-term rate 15%, tax owed $2,220. Income is below the surtax threshold so no 3.8% is added, and the fees on both sides trimmed the taxable gain by $200.

Input: Two short-term lots: 2 ETH bought at $3,000 sold at $2,000 with $50 fees, and 1 ETH bought at $1,500 sold at $3,500 with $50 fees

Result: The first lot loses $2,100 and the second gains $1,900, so net short-term is minus $200 and tax owed is $0. The harvesting figure reports $2,100, the gross loss on the losing lot rather than the $200 net, so read it as raw material.

Input: One short-term lot: 1,000 tokens bought at $0.50, sold at $1.20, fees $25, income $60,000, single

Result: Cost basis $525, proceeds $1,175, gain $650, short-term rate 22%, tax owed $143. Held past a year at the same income the long-term rate would be 15%, which would cut the tax to $97.50 on an identical trade.

Frequently asked questions

Is swapping one coin for another taxable?: Yes. Because the IRS treats digital assets as property, exchanging one token for another is a disposal of the first at its fair market value rather than a like-kind swap. Enter it here as a sale at the value you received.
Does the cost basis method selector change the result?: No, and that is worth knowing. FIFO, LIFO, and specific identification appear as options, but the calculation uses the basis you type into each row, so the selector records intent rather than re-matching lots against an acquisition history the page does not hold.
How is the short-term rate applied?: A single marginal rate is picked from your annual income and applied to the whole short-term gain. Real short-term gains stack on top of ordinary income and can straddle two brackets, so a large gain will be estimated slightly high or low.
What is the 3.8 percent line?: The Net Investment Income Tax, a surtax on investment income for filers above $200,000, or $250,000 jointly. The tool applies it to the full gain once income passes the threshold, whereas the statute applies it to the lesser of net investment income or the excess over the threshold.
Can I deduct my losses against salary?: Partly, and not on this page. Capital losses offset capital gains first, and up to $3,000 of remaining net loss can reduce ordinary income each year with the excess carried forward. This tool stops at showing losses available.
Does it cover mining, staking, or airdrops?: No. Rewards from mining, staking, and airdrops are generally ordinary income at fair market value when received, and then carry their own basis for a later disposal. Only disposals are modelled here, so income-side events need separate treatment.
Does it produce a Form 8949?: No. There is no export, no form generation, and no filing of any kind. It is an estimator that runs in your browser, and the transactions you type are not saved, transmitted, or retained anywhere after you leave the page.
Do these rules apply outside the United States?: No. The rates, thresholds, and property treatment here are US federal rules in US dollars. TaxEase separately offers paid services for Pakistan under FBR rules, which handle digital assets differently again.

Tips

Enter fees on both sides of every row. Buying fees raise cost basis and selling fees reduce proceeds, so leaving them out inflates the gain in a way that compounds across many transactions.
Split a partially sold holding into separate rows when the lots were bought at different prices. A single blended row hides which portion actually created the gain and which merely returned capital.
Record the acquisition date alongside every row you enter. The short or long-term choice drives the largest single difference in the result and is the first thing people get wrong from memory.
Treat the losses figure as gross rather than net. It sums the loss-making rows without offsetting them against gains or applying the annual deduction limit against ordinary income.

Written by Ahsan Mahmood. Last updated 2026-07-21. This calculator runs entirely in your browser and produces estimates, not tax advice.TaxEase — Crypto Tax Calculator for Gains, Losses and Fees 2024