Song A Day creator recounts ‘tax nightmare’ after making millions from NFT sale

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Singer-songwriter Jonathan Mann recently shared the communicative of however earning millions successful Ethereum (ETH) during a one-hour merchantability of his NFTs yet became a “tax nightmare.”

Mann has published 1 opus a time implicit the past 17 years and released his 6,000th opus connected June 5, which was astir the purported nightmare resulting from the sale.

In 2022, helium sold 4,000 songs worthy 13 years of enactment wrong 60 minutes for a full of astir $3 cardinal successful Ethereum. He retained the net successful Ethereum alternatively of converting to dollars.

However, a week later, marketplace terms slipped beneath $3,000, shrinking the sale’s dollar value.

Tax nightmare

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) treats gross earned straight successful crypto arsenic mean income astatine the infinitesimal of receipt, helium owed a monolithic taxation work adjacent though his assets were nary longer worthy the aforesaid dollar amount.

The taxation antheral calculated Mann’s taxation obligations based connected the $3 cardinal archetypal valuation alternatively than connected consequent little prices.

Mann had already accumulated $1 cardinal successful 2021 obligations linked to earlier NFT mints and airdrops, including Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and ConstitutionDAO tokens. 

To screen portion of that balance, helium borrowed $400,000 against 518 ETH done the Aave lending platform. However, small did helium cognize that his collateral was astir to evaporate.

The LUNA collapse

However, the May 2022 illness of the Terra ecosystem chopped the collateral’s worth from $1.5 cardinal to astir $200,000, forcing a last-minute repayment that near Mann with 163 ETH and a nett superior nonaccomplishment of astir $1.3 million.

IRS notices during 2023 and 2024 cited unpaid income taxation of astir $1.1 cardinal and threatened plus seizure. Mann recounted that astatine the clip helium was “dreading” the lone enactment helium had near to lick his dilemma – selling his “autoglyph.”

He wrote:

“My Autoglyph.

Minted April 8th, 2019.  

(Day earlier my birthday)  

It outgo $36.

And this wasn’t conscionable an NFT. 

Matt Hall and John Watkinson (of Cryptopunks fame) had made thing special. The time aft the mint, I turned excavation into music. John built a customized “glyph to midi” instrumentality due to the fact that of it.

It was a portion of my psyche from erstwhile 50 radical knew what NFTs were.  

By 2024, it was worthy implicit $1 million.”

The merchantability offset the losses from his borrowing and helped him wide his taxation obligations. As a decision to his story, Mann urged creators to person crypto from NFT income to dollars.

He wrote:

“The motivation for each NFT creator: SELL. THE. ETH. IMMEDIATELY.”

This volition lucifer gross with prospective taxation liabilities. He cited utilizing the protocol 0xSplits to automatically person fractional of NFT proceeds into USDC to trim vulnerability to terms swings.

The station Song A Day creator recounts ‘tax nightmare’ aft making millions from NFT sale appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.

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