Release

Fortuitous-receipt airdrops, paragraph 42, and swap valuation

An airdrop or hard-fork coin you did nothing to earn can be marked as a fortuitous receipt: no income either way, with the lot opening at a nil base cost on capital account or at market value on revenue account. Coinfig also flags capital-loss disposals caught by the 45-day paragraph 42 window, and values swap proceeds from the asset you received rather than the one you gave up. From this release through 13 August 2026, reporting also required an explicit capital-or-revenue election before it would run. That requirement has since been replaced by a persistent default. See the 13 August 2026 release note.

  • ZA
  • FIFO

Highlights

  • Fortuitous receipts: no income either way

    An airdrop or hard-fork coin you did nothing to earn can be marked as a fortuitous receipt on the income row. Coinfig records no income for it and opens the lot at a nil base cost on capital account, or at market value under section 22(4) on revenue account. This follows the SARS Draft Guide to the Taxation of Crypto Assets of 1 July 2026. A coin you worked for stays income at market value, and a fee you actually paid to claim a fortuitous receipt stays in its base cost.

  • Paragraph 42 loss deferral: detected and disclosed

    Coinfig now flags a capital-loss disposal where you reacquired the same asset within 45 days either side, the paragraph 42 window, and gives it its own review page in the report with the loss potentially deferred shown as an upper bound. This release detects and discloses. It does not yet apply the deferral to your figures.

  • Swap proceeds valued from what you received

    A crypto-to-crypto swap is a barter transaction, so its proceeds are now valued from the asset you received. The path Coinfig used before priced the disposal off the asset you gave up instead.

  • An explicit capital-vs-revenue election

    Reporting now asks you to elect capital or revenue treatment before it runs, with guidance for accounts that mix both kinds of activity. The election is recorded as your own classification, not a determination by Coinfig. From 13 August 2026 this mandatory step was replaced by a persistent default and a three-way control. See the update note in that release.

Update, 13 August 2026. The mandatory capital-or-revenue confirmation described below was replaced. Reporting no longer blocks on a confirmation step: revenue is now a persistent default that survives a new device or a cleared browser, and you can change it, or split by holding period, from your tax settings. See the 13 August 2026 release note.

What shipped

A South African tax-accuracy release: how Coinfig treats crypto you received without earning it, how it flags a specific capital-loss timing rule, and how it prices a swap.

Fortuitous receipts

An airdrop or hard-fork coin you did nothing to earn, an unworked airdrop or a coin from a chain split you simply held through, can now be marked as a fortuitous receipt on the income row. Coinfig records no income for it, and opens the lot at a nil base cost on capital account, or at market value under section 22(4) on revenue account. This follows Examples 18 to 22 of the SARS Draft Guide to the Taxation of Crypto Assets, published 1 July 2026. A coin you worked for, such as a reward for a task, stays ordinary income at market value. A fee you actually paid to claim a fortuitous receipt, such as claim gas, stays in its base cost. A fee charged in the same asset never was expenditure, and still is not.

See Airdrop and Hard fork in the glossary for the general treatment this is an exception to.

Paragraph 42: detected, not yet applied

Coinfig now flags a capital-loss disposal where you reacquired the same asset within 45 days either side of it, the wash-sale window paragraph 42 covers, and gives it its own review page in the report with the loss potentially deferred shown as an upper bound. This release detects and discloses the position. It does not yet reduce your reported loss by the deferred amount. That is a later phase.

Swap valuation

A crypto-to-crypto swap is a barter transaction under South African tax rules, so its proceeds are now valued from the asset you received. The path Coinfig used before priced the disposal off the asset you gave up, the wrong side of the trade.

An explicit capital-vs-revenue election

Reporting asked you, from this release, to elect capital or revenue treatment before it ran, with guidance for accounts that have both trading and investment-style activity. The election was recorded as your own classification, not a determination by Coinfig. See the update note above for what replaced this.

Also in this release

  • Tax reports gained an income breakdown by category, in the summary, PDF and CSV.
  • Reports now explain SARS's annual capital-gains exclusion (R40,000 for this tax year, rising to R50,000 from the 2027 year of assessment) and remind you to answer yes to the crypto-assets question in the ITR12 wizard so the crypto sections open.
  • You can now record an assessed capital loss brought forward from a prior year. The report shows it as an informational opening position and never nets it into your totals. Reports also carry a standing section 20A note whenever your revenue-side activity shows a net loss for the year.
  • Disposal and lot exports now include the ZAR price source behind each value.
  • An unpriced leg of a token swap is now valued under the barter rule instead of at zero.

As always: Coinfig is a calculation and reporting tool, not tax advice. If a specific treatment is unclear for your situation, confirm it with a qualified tax practitioner.