🌍 Everywhere · 7 min
Got a tax letter about your crypto? A step-by-step survival guide
What to do when the tax office asks about your crypto: deadlines, what to send, and the mistakes to avoid.
A letter from the tax office asking about your crypto is not a fine. It is a question: the authority has received data — often from exchanges under DAC8, or from your bank — that does not match your return, and it wants documentation. How you answer largely decides the outcome.
Step 1: Find the deadline
The letter has a deadline, usually 10 to 30 days. If you need more time, ask in writing before it expires. Silence is the worst answer: without records the tax office may estimate the tax itself, often with a cost basis of zero.
Step 2: Collect your full history
Download complete exports from every exchange you have used, including closed accounts. List the addresses of your own wallets and the bank transfers to and from exchanges.
Step 3: Don't send raw CSV files
Thousands of unexplained rows do not help the inspector and often create new questions. Send a clear statement: gains and losses per year using the required method (FIFO in Denmark and Greece), valued in local currency, with transfers between your own accounts marked so they don't look like sales.
Step 4: Answer what is asked
Answer the letter's questions precisely and attach evidence. If your figures show earlier years were wrong, say so and ask to correct them. Errors corrected through cooperation are generally treated far more leniently than errors the authority finds itself.
Denmark and Greece
In Denmark the letter is usually a 'Forespørgsel om oplysninger' from Skattestyrelsen; gains go in Rubrik 20 and losses in Rubrik 58. In Greece the AADE often focuses on the source of funds (πόθεν έσχες); gains are declared in Table 4E of Form E1.
How a tool helps
Software that imports every exchange, pairs internal transfers and produces a ready report per year turns weeks of work into hours — and gives you something clean to hand to your accountant or the tax office.