Compass Mining

There are a handful of genuinely useful operational points - the section 179 vs. bonus depreciation distinction, the wash-sale rule gap for crypto property, and the 80% NOL carry-forward ceiling - but much of the episode is basic tax-101 content (cost basis tracking, LLC formation, record-keeping) that any competent CPA would tell any small business client. Insight-per-minute ratio is moderate.

“section 179 cannot take you into a loss position”

“because the IRS has dubbed bitcoin and crypto property, the wash sale rules don't apply to property. So to date, you still can take advantage of that”

The episode recycles well-known bitcoin tax frameworks (2014 IRS property ruling, bonus depreciation mechanics, hobby vs. business classification) without offering first-principles or contrarian arguments. The wash-sale loophole and the last-minute IRS/Treasury clarification on the corporate AMT are the freshest points, but both are primarily news items rather than novel analysis.

“the wash sale rules don't apply to property. So to date, you still can take advantage of that. Meaning you could liquidate bitcoin at a loss, buy it back and still essentially have the bitcoin on your books”

“the IRS and Treasury came out last week and clarified that hey, unrealized gains on bitcoin and digital assets would not count towards that”

Nick Ward is a practicing CPA and co-founder who demonstrably works with bitcoin mining clients, has personal mining experience, and has navigated real IRS audits - this is a genuine practitioner, not a thought-leader. However, he is not a prominent or nationally recognized expert, and his firm is unnamed beyond 'the network firm,' limiting independent verification of scale.

“I still treat myself as a hobbyist, especially because I don't run them all year round. You know, I wait till it gets cold here in Ohio, help heat the garage”

“I had a couple. One, one specifically of an individual who filed their own taxes...it was probably eight to 12 hours of calls with the IRS”

The guest uses concrete numbers throughout - $2,000 cap-X policy thresholds, 80% NOL limitation, 15% corporate AMT rate, 30% renewable energy credits, the $120K bitcoin cost-basis example - which meaningfully grounds the advice. The episode loses points because examples are mostly hypothetical constructs rather than named real cases, and recommended software tools are not specifically named.

“if you've got anything that's below $2,000, we go ahead and expense that regardless of what it is”

“you've got $100,000 net profit and $300,000 of new machines, 179 could only take you to, you know, you only apply $100,000 to that where bonus could go over”

Nina asks competent follow-up questions that logically advance the topic (depreciation recapture on equipment flips, NOL offsets against wages, international withholding) but never challenges a claim, pushes for a stronger opinion, or surfaces a tension in the guest's advice. The conversation is informational and functional, not probing or adversarial.

“And how about for, like, miners, um, who are upgrading their equipment, so, um, uh, selling off the older ones and buying new ones. And, uh, suppose, uh, a good strategy is keep buying the latest generation of miners”

“are you offsetting, can you offset wages or other business income like, or both”