Coinbase Issues New Tax Forms, But Users Still Face Complex Reporting Challenges

Coinbase users are facing a new tax reporting cycle for the 2025 tax year. The exchange has begun issuing Form 1099-DA to reportable crypto sales and exchanges, which it sends to the IRS along with a copy available to customers.

This may seem like the end of tax calculations, but it's not. The form only reports gross proceeds from Coinbase's perspective, without considering cost basis, making users responsible for determining what they paid for the assets sold, accounting for transfers, and combining Coinbase records with activity from other platforms and wallets.

As a result, taxpayers are left to rebuild the purchase side of the equation while the IRS has access to sale data. This is a familiar problem in the crypto space, now with a more formal paper trail.