Switching crypto exchange: what happens to the holding period and the tax when you transfer

Anyone sending their coins from one trading platform to another, or to their own wallet, loses neither the holding period nor triggers a tax. A transfer between addresses that belong to you is not a disposal, because nobody pays anything for it and the asset does not change owner. The one-year period of Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act keeps running without interruption. The switch still gets expensive, just in a different place: the acquisition data breaks off during the transfer. The new platform does not know when you bought and at what price. Anyone not securing that beforehand faces, come the following spring, a holding with no provenance and has to explain to the tax office why the holding period is supposed to have elapsed. This article shows you what really happens for tax purposes, where the wallet-based approach bites, and which records to pull before you hit send. Switching exchange: what the transfer triggers for tax The short answer: nothing. Neither on sending nor on arrival does a taxable event arise, as long as sender and recipient are the same person. That follows directly from the structure of the private disposal transaction. In its circular of March 6, 20...