Despite never selling any Bitcoin, MicroStrategy may have to pay taxes on its unrealized gains.
Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin BTCUSD holder, may have to pay federal income taxes on its unrealized gains, according to the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The act established a “corporate alternative minimum tax” under which MicroStrategy would qualify for a 15% tax rate based on the adjusted version of the company’s earnings, according to Jan. 24 report in The Wall Street Journal.
Still, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may create an exemption for BTC under President Donald Trump’s more crypto-friendly administration.
MicroStrategy’s holdings have surpassed 450,000 BTC, worth more than $48 billion, after the company bought $243 million of BTC on Jan. 13.
According to MicroStrategy’s portfolio tracker, the company’s Bitcoin holdings have an unrealized gain of over $19.3 billion.
The report comes six months after MicroStrategy agreed on June 3, 2024, to pay $40 million to settle a tax fraud lawsuit that had accused it and Saylor of tax evasion.
The attorney general of the District of Columbia sued Saylor and MicroStrategy in August 2022, alleging the executive had paid no income taxes in the district for at least 10 years while he lived there.
MicroStrategy and Coinbase push against corporate alternative minimum tax
MicroStrategy and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have pushed back against the corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) regulation.
The two firms have requested that the US Treasury and IRS adjust the final rule to exclude unrealized crypto gains from the adjusted financial statement income (AFSI) to “avoid serious unintended consequences to US corporations holding substantial cryptocurrency.”
The two firms wrote in a joint letter to lawmakers on Jan. 3:
“Because the standard affects a corporation’s AFSI, corporations that own enough appreciated crypto (or have enough other book income) to be subject to CAMT must now pay tax on unrealized gains in the value of that cryptocurrency,” the letter stated.
US crypto tax laws gain prominence after IRS issued crypto tax guidelines in 2024
Crypto tax laws gained increased investor interest in June 2024 after the IRS issued a new crypto regulation, which will make US crypto transactions subject to third-party tax reporting requirements for the first time.
Starting in 2025, centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs) and other brokers will start reporting the sales and exchanges of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies.
According to the IRS, the decision aims to help investors “file accurate tax returns with respect to digital asset transactions” and to address potential noncompliance in digital currency.
This decision could push crypto investors to decentralized platforms in a “paradoxical situation” that could make tax revenue harder to track, Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert, told Cointelegraph.
Showcasing the crypto industry’s backlash, the Blockchain Association filed a lawsuit against the IRS in December 2024, arguing that the rules are unconstitutional because they include decentralized exchanges under the “broker” term, extending data collection requirements to them.
Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.
Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.
An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.
