Unshocking News from the IRS: Staking Income Is Taxable

In what shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, the IRS announced yesterday in Revenue Ruling 2023-14 that staking income, when received, is taxable income based on the fair market value when constructively received.  This should be a surprise to no one–if you receive something with a value it’s an accession to wealth and that’s the definition of income.  For myself and our clients, this has been how we’ve treated staking income because the answer of whether or not this was taxable was so obvious.