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Filing using TurboTax

Carl avatar
Written by Carl
Updated over 4 months ago

Check out our comprehensive blog on all things TurboTax & crypto.

Get set up

To get started, you’ll need to import your transaction data into Koinly and generate the TurboTax (Gain/Loss Export). If you have income, you will also need to download the Complete Tax Report. Once you have all of this, head over to TurboTax.

We’ll cover steps for TurboTax Online first, and then TurboTax desktop after.

Reporting capital gains

  1. Go to Income & Expenses (or Wages & Income)

  2. Select Start/Review/Edit

  3. Select Add/Edit next to Investments and Savings (1099-B, 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, 1099-K, Crypto)

  4. On the next page, answer Yes to the question Did you have investment income in 2024?

  5. On the next page, select Enter a different way

  6. On the next page, select cryptocurrency, then continue

    TurboTax Capital Gains Crypto

  7. On the next page, select upload it from my computer, then continue

  8. Select other from the drop-down menu for What’s the name of the name of the crypto service you used?

  9. Under name, enter Koinly

    Crypto Service TurboTax

  10. Under CSV type, select Gain/Loss Report or Form 1099-B, then continue

  11. Upload your Koinly TurboTax Export (Gain/Loss) file

    Upload Koinly TurboTax Export
  12. Select Review and then continue

    Review TurboTax crypto transactions
  13. Compare your totals from your original Koinly report to the totals recorded in TurboTax. TurboTax rounds your figures, so a small difference is normal. Once you’re happy, select continue

    Review TurboTax crypto transactions

Reporting income

  1. Go to Wages & Income

  2. Select Add More Income

  3. Select Less Common Income

  4. Next to Miscellaneous Income (1099-A, 1099-C), select Start/Revisit

  5. Next to Other Reportable Income, select Start/Revisit

  6. Answer Yes to Any other taxable income?

  7. Enter a description (for example, crypto mining).

  8. Take the total amount from the Income Summary section of your Koinly Complete Tax Report and enter this into the amount box.

    Crypto income TurboTax
  9. Select continue and review this section

    Review crypto income in TurboTax
  10. Select done

ℹ️ An important note: if you received a 1099-MISC from a centralized crypto exchange, you may need to report your income differently to avoid reporting duplicate income

TurboTax desktop

  1. Log in and go to your tax return

  2. Select file from the top navigation

  3. Select import

  4. Select upload crypto sales

  5. Select other for What’s the name of the crypto service you used?

  6. Enter a description, select Gain/Loss or 1099-B and select continue

  7. Select upload it from my computer

  8. Upload your Koinly TurboTax Export (Gain/Loss) file

  9. Review your transactions

Troubleshooting

If you encounter this warning, read through the instructions and make sure you've followed each step in this article carefully:

The most common reasons for this error are:

  • You are importing the wrong file. Be sure to follow our instructions and choose "TurboTax Export (Gains/Loss)" not "Transaction History" as the type of report you generate.

  • You have more than 3,000 lines in the report (this is TurboTax's limit). If this is the case, you need to split the file into smaller amounts, e.g. two files with 1,500 in each.

  • The dates are in the wrong format. If you open the file before uploading it, your device settings can change the format and make it unreadable to TurboTax. Try generating a new report and importing it again without opening it first.

  • The file format is not correct - If you open the file in Excel beforehand, it may change the type from .csv to .xlsx making in incompatible with TurboTax.

Why is Turbotax asking me to review all transactions? (US)

This review was only recently added to the Online version of Turbotax but the CD/Download version has a similar review section.

This section is entirely optional and can simply be skipped by clicking on the Continue button. It's a nice option to have but most active traders do not fill in this section since there are so many transactions.

image.png

This review section will come up for anyone who imports a CSV file to Turbotax as it's not possible to include this additional information in the CSV file itself.

If you have more than 4000 disposals:

TurboTax allows up to 4,000 imported transactions. If you exceed this limit, Koinly will aggregate your transactions while preserving your long-term and short-term gains.

For more information, check our article about Report Aggregation.

TurboTax is saying my file is not compatible:

  • The date format needs to be correct for the US (MM/DD/YYYY) for all transactions

  • If it's not, make sure your home country is set to USA on the Settings page and generate the report again.

ℹ️ Some users have also reported difficulty uploading Koinly’s TurboTax file with TurboTax Online. This appears to be in relation to an alternative CSV file upload page within TurboTax, so make sure to follow the exact steps we provided above.

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