The directions in one box
- Giving: the UK and Australia deem a disposal at market value — the giver settles the growth despite receiving nothing; the US and Germany spare the giver capital gains but run separate gift tax systems.
- Receiving: usually no immediate tax, but cost basis splits two ways — UK/Australia take market value at receipt; the US and Germany carry over the giver’s original cost. Guessing wrong understates later gains.
- Inheriting: whether basis resets at death or continues is where countries disagree most, with estate taxes layered on top.
- Donating: qualifying charities can bring reliefs — behind strict eligibility and paperwork.
Coins change hands in ways that are not trades: a transfer to family, a gift received, a relative’s wallet left behind, a donation. What unites them is that no money reached you — which is exactly why intuition says “no tax” and why tax law frequently disagrees. This page covers the change-of-owner cases only; disposals in general live in the complete guide, and coins that are simply gone (theft, collapse) in losses & theft.
Why tax can arrive without a sale
Some capital gains regimes trigger on “disposal” — and disposal is defined more broadly than “sold for money”: it covers ownership leaving you. In the UK and Australia, a gift is treated as a deemed disposal at market value — tax law pretends you sold at the market price and settles the growth over your holding period, consideration or not. This is not universal: the US and Germany chose a different architecture, as the table below shows.
Keep two parallel taxes distinct throughout: capital gains tax (on growth, usually the giver’s issue) and gift or estate tax (on the transfer itself, with rules, allowances and liable parties that vary completely by country). A single handover may touch one system, or both.
Situation one: you give coins away
The most underestimated of the four — and the four countries split into two opposite mechanisms, so no single intuition covers them:
| Country | Capital gains at the moment of gifting | The other tax |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Deemed disposal at market value — growth settled | Inheritance tax rules can also apply |
| Australia | Deemed disposal at market value (a CGT event) | No general gift tax |
| United States | Usually no gain realised by the giver | A separate gift tax system: annual exclusion plus lifetime exemption, reported by the giver (Form 709) when thresholds are met |
| Germany | No consideration, no private sale — §23 not triggered | Schenkungsteuer: allowances set by family relationship, larger for close relatives |
Put bluntly: in the UK and Australia the sting is settling growth on the way out; in the US and Germany the sting sits on the gift tax side. Reading the US through UK eyes invents a capital gains bill that does not exist; reading the UK through US eyes misses one that does. Common refinements:
- Gifts to a spouse: several countries defer the gain or carry the cost across between spouses — under conditions (marriage status, living together, shared tax residence) that are precise, not vibes.
- Gifts to children or friends: rarely get spousal treatment in the UK or Australia — expect the deemed disposal; in the US and Germany the question becomes which allowance the gift consumes.
- “Just holding it for them” / moving coins to a relative’s account: if beneficial ownership genuinely never moved, the analysis may differ — but the burden of proving that is yours, and a verbal understanding rarely carries it.
The awkward scenario (a UK/Australia special)
In deemed-disposal countries, gifting coins that have appreciated hard can produce a tax bill payable in cash — after the coins themselves have left your hands. Planning year-end gifts? Estimate the embedded gain first (the estimator gives the amount) rather than discovering it at filing time. The US and Germany avoid this particular trap — their question is whether an allowance got used up.
Situation two: you receive a gift
As the recipient you have disposed of nothing, so there is usually no immediate capital gains tax. But one question must be answered on day one, or a future sale gets calculated wrong: where does your cost basis come from? Two mechanisms again:
| Country | Cost basis | What to record now |
|---|---|---|
| UK / Australia | Usually market value at receipt (mirroring the giver’s deemed disposal) | Date received + fiat market value that day |
| United States | The giver’s original cost carries over; if value at gifting was below the giver’s cost, a dual-basis rule governs losses | Also the giver’s purchase price and date |
| Germany | The giver’s cost and acquisition date both carry over — you step into their shoes, holding period included | Same — and the giver’s clock-start date is critical |
The most expensive mistake on this page
In the US and Germany, assuming your basis is “what it was worth when I got it” — when the rule actually carries over the giver’s original cost — makes your calculated gain too small: under-reporting. The German carry-over cuts the other way too: the inherited holding-period start can work in your favour for the one-year test. Either way, the first thing to do with a sizeable gift is ask the giver for their purchase price and date, not just note the price on arrival day.
Beyond basis, record:
- Who gave it, and the relationship — it drives gift-tax reporting duties and spousal rules.
- Whether it truly was a gift — coins that were actually payment for work or promotion are income at market value on receipt, not a gift at all. The dividing line is the same “was there consideration?” test unpacked in the airdrops guide.
Situation three: inherited coins
Inheritance is the most layered of the four, because two levels move at once:
- The estate level: whether the estate owes tax, who pays and with what allowances differs enormously by country; crypto generally enters the estate at market value at death.
- Your future cost basis: some countries reset basis to date-of-death market value; others have the heir continue the deceased’s original cost. Between those two methods lies a very large tax difference on the eventual sale.
One further problem is practical rather than fiscal, and just as final: without the private keys, the coins cannot be retrieved — while the estate may already owe tax on their value. Arranging secure access for heirs is outside tax law but worth doing while it can still be done. And cross-border estates — person and assets in different countries — are firmly licensed-professional territory.
Situation four: donating to charity
Donating cryptoassets to a qualifying charity can attract relief in several countries — no gain on the donation, or a deduction for its value. Two conditions tend to be hard ones:
- The recipient must qualify under tax rules — self-described charitable projects do not count.
- The paperwork must hold: donation records, the charity’s acknowledgement, and a defensible valuation. Deduction claims without evidence rarely survive review.
For larger donations, the valuation method itself may need justifying. Coordinate with the charity and your adviser before transferring, not after.
The hardest thing to reconstruct here is evidence
Trades at least leave exchange statements. Gifts and inheritances often exist only on-chain, or only between two people — no statement, no confirmation email. Years later, at filing time, even “how much moved that day, and what was it worth” can be unanswerable.
So record at the moment of transfer: date, amount, token, fiat market value, counterparty and relationship, transaction hash. The full field list is in Keeping transaction records. Honestly: the difficulty in this corner of crypto tax is rarely the rules — it is producing the evidence afterwards.
FAQ
I gave coins to family and received nothing. Why would there be tax?
Someone gifted me a coin. Do I report it right away?
What cost basis do inherited coins take?
Official sources
For this topic the pages to check are not the crypto pages but each country’s gift and estate tax materials — crypto is simply one kind of property fed into those rules:
- UK · CGT on gifts: HMRC, Capital Gains Tax: gifts — gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/gifts
- UK · estates: HMRC, Inheritance Tax — gov.uk/inheritance-tax
- US · gift tax: IRS, Gift tax — irs.gov/…/gift-tax; donations: IRS, Charitable contribution deductions — irs.gov/…/charitable-contribution-deductions
- Australia · deceased estates: the ATO’s “Deceased estates” topic (search the term on-site — deep links to the ATO rot quickly) — ato.gov.au
- Germany · Erbschaft- und Schenkungsteuer — bundesfinanzministerium.de
Checked against the official pages on 1 September 2026. Crypto generally rides these regimes as ordinary property, but allowances, relationship bands and reporting thresholds adjust yearly — and vary between countries far more than trading rules do. For your own transfer, the year’s official pages govern.
Of all our pages, this is the one not to act on alone
Gifts, inheritance and donations pull on two tax systems at once, entangled with marital status, kinship and residence — beyond what any general write-up can settle. This page equips you with the traps and the questions; the execution belongs with a licensed tax professional, and wills or cross-border estates need a lawyer as well.