Is Form 1099-DA the same as Form 8949?

Quick summary: What’s the difference between Form 1099-DA and Form 8949? 

What is Form 1099-DA?: Form 1099-DA is an informational form issued by cryptocurrency exchanges to customers and the IRS. The form is designed to report your proceeds from cryptocurrency disposals (which include selling and trading away your crypto). The form is sent to customers and the IRS. At this time, exchanges are not required to track and report cost basis (the original price of your cryptocurrency at acquisition) to the IRS. 

Cost basis information on Form 1099-DA may be inaccurate (especially if you transferred cryptocurrency between wallets). 

What is Form 8949?: Form 8949 is a tax form that you are required to fill out to report your capital gains and losses. On this form, you are required to provide details about the cryptocurrency you disposed of, such as the date of acquisition and disposal, amounts, and your cost basis information.

Form 1099-DA is purely informational (and in many cases, contains incorrect information about cost basis) and was not designed to be attached to your tax return. You are required to fill out Form 8949 to report your capital gains and losses, regardless of whether you received Form 1099-DA.  

If your Form 1099-DA has incorrect information on cost basis, the IRS allows you to report your correct cost basis on Form 8949. 

What information is on Form 1099-DA? 

Form 1099-DA lists your crypto transactions from exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, or Binance.US. Each transaction includes:

• The cryptocurrency you disposed of
• How many units of crypto you disposed of
• When you acquired the cryptocurrency (may be incorrect or missing if you transferred from another platform) 
• When you disposed of the cryptocurrency 
• The fair market value of your crypto at disposal (proceeds)
• Your cost basis (not required to be reported to the IRS, can be incorrect) 
• Digital Token Identifier Foundation (DTIF) code 

While proceeds are reported to the IRS, information like cost basis is only reported to customers for the 2025 tax year.

Why is the cost basis information on Form 1099-DA wrong?

Many 1099-DA forms show $0 or "unknown" for cost basis for certain transactions. If you simply copy and paste the numbers from Form 1099-DA, you may overpay on your taxes. 

This issue typically occurs if you transferred cryptocurrency between exchanges/wallets. 

If you find yourself in a situation like this, there is an easy solution. Currently, the IRS allows taxpayers to report their own cost basis on Form 8949, provided that you have records (either from your exchanges/wallets or from your crypto tax software) to back it up. 

What should I do when I receive Form 1099-DA?

It's important to check Form 1099-DA against your own records, and make sure the proceeds you report on Form 8949 match the proceeds numbers on Form 1099-DA. Remember, major discrepancies here can lead to issues with the IRS.

In some cases, your Form 1099-DA may have grossly inaccurate proceeds or contain records of transactions that never occurred. In cases like these, you should request a corrected form from your exchange. Document your efforts to show the IRS that you made a good-faith effort to fix the issue in case of future inquiry.

Remember, exchanges currently don't report cost basis to the IRS on Form 1099-DA. There's no need to request a corrected form for cost basis errors. Simply report your correct cost basis on Form 8949.

What Form 1099-DA doesn’t include 

Your 1099-DA only covers transactions that happened on that specific exchange. It doesn't include:

• Trades on other exchanges
• DeFi transactions (Uniswap, Aave, etc.)
• Wallet-to-wallet transfers 

Remember, you are required to report all taxable income from cryptocurrency on your tax return, even if you did not receive a 1099 form. 

How do I report my cryptocurrency on Form 8949? 

Form 8949 is the form you fill out on your tax return to report your capital gains and losses. You should list each individual cryptocurrency disposal with the purchase date, sale date, proceeds, cost basis, and the associated gain or loss.

Getting started with Form 8949

First, you should use Part I or Part II of Form 8949 depending on whether your disposals were short-term or long-term (long-term if you held your crypto for 12 months or more, short-term if you held for less than 12 months). 

Then, you should select a box based on whether you received a Form 1099-DA for your crypto transactions. 

Box G: Short-term/long-term transactions reported on Form 1099-DA showing basis was reported to the IRS 

Box H: Short-term/long-term transactions reported on Form 1099-DA showing basis was NOT reported to the IRS 

Box I: Short-term/Long-term digital asset not reported to you on Form 1099-DA or Form 1099-B

If you received a Form 1099-DA for the 2025 tax year, you’ll most likely select Box H. Currently, exchanges are not required to report basis to the IRS. 

How to report transactions on Form 8949

Next, you'll want to report each disposal of cryptocurrency with the following information:

• A description and the amount of the property you sold
• The date you originally acquired the property
• The date you sold or disposed of the property
• Proceeds from your crypto disposal
• Your cost basis for purchasing the property
• Your gain or loss

If your Form 1099-DA has missing/incomplete data on cost basis or date of acquisition, you can report the correct information here.

How to fill out your Form 8949 with CoinLedger

Here's how CoinLedger can help you fill out Form 8949.

Step 1: Add Your Other Wallets and Exchanges

While you can fill out your Form 8949 yourself, reporting manually can take serious time and effort if you have more than a handful of transactions.

Meanwhile, CoinLedger can help you generate complete tax forms in minutes.

Connect every wallet, exchange, and DeFi platform you used to CoinLedger. The software will automatically calculate your cost basis across wallets and exchanges. Then, you can generate a complete record of your gains and losses. 

Step 2: Review for Consistency

Once you've uploaded your transactions, double-check them for accuracy. CoinLedger’s error reconciliation system will let you know if there are any errors/mismatches before you download your tax report. 

Step 3: Download your Form 8949

CoinLedger will generate a complete Form 8949 that you can send to your accountant or export to platforms like TurboTax. 

Common mistakes on Form 1099-DA 

Trusting the 1099-DA cost basis without checking: Many forms show missing or incomplete data for cost basis in 2025. Consider using crypto tax software to find and report your correct cost basis. 

Forgetting non-exchange activity: You should report all of your taxable income from cryptocurrency. This may include DeFi trades, staking rewards and other transactions not included on Form 1099-DA.

Not keeping records: Save transaction histories and wallet addresses so you can provide records in case of future IRS scrutiny. 

Why did the IRS create Form 1099-DA? 

Form 1099-DA was designed to help the IRS to crack down on cryptocurrency tax fraud. Before 2026, crypto exchanges were not required to report capital gains and losses on 1099 forms. 

With the release of Form 1099-DA, it’s more difficult than ever to evade taxes on cryptocurrency. 

Get started with CoinLedger 

Looking for an easy way to generate your Form 8949? Try CoinLedger, the platform trusted by more than 700,000 investors around the world. Just connect your wallets and exchanges, and let CoinLedger generate complete tax forms in minutes. 

‍Get started with a free account today.