Every option, ours included
Prediction market tax software, compared.
Four common ways to get a prediction-market year onto a return, what each one costs, and the point at which each hands the job back to you. Including ours, and including the parts of ours that are not live yet.
Every description here is drawn from what each company publishes about itself, last checked September 2026. US federal treatment only.
Four common routes, and where each one stops.
We see a prediction-market year filed four common ways. Each is a reasonable choice for somebody, and what separates them is not quality, it is how far along the job they take you before handing it back.
| Route | Cost | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself | Free, and a weekend | Export your trades, rebuild per-lot basis with fees across partly filled orders, and, for Section 1256, apply the 60/40 split and find a December 31 price the venue no longer serves. Consumer tax software will accept the figure you arrive at; none of it publishes a flow that derives one. |
| A generalist CPA | Billed by the hour | A licensed professional’s judgment on an unsettled question. The bill covers the hours it takes, including any time spent learning how event contracts and the venues’ data work. |
| A DIY prediction-market tool | Free tiers, paid tiers around $29 | Computes an event-contract P&L and, on at least one product, generates Form 6781 as a PDF you download. Nothing files it. Prior years you have already filed are out of scope. |
| Realize | Free, $59, $159, or full service | The whole span: free tracking, Form 6781 and its statement, e-filing through our filing partner, or a referral to an independent CPA firm. Built for Kalshi and Polymarket and nothing else. Our forms and partner filing are not live yet; they arrive in time to file 2026 taxes. |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
Consumer tax software is absent from that table on purpose. TurboTax, H&R Block, FreeTaxUSA and TaxSlayer are built for wages and brokerage 1099s, and the crypto tools read a Polymarket wallet as property rather than as an event contract. None of them publishes a prediction-market flow, so using one is the first row above with extra steps: you still arrive at the figure yourself. Where a Section 1256 figure is typed into those programs is in entering Section 1256 contracts in tax software.
We are not the only one, and we will not pretend otherwise.
A handful of products now take event contracts seriously. Here is where each one stops, ours included. The list covers what we could reach and test; it is not a census of everything that exists.
| Tool | What it computes | Filing and prior years |
|---|---|---|
| Realize | Rebuilds per-lot cost basis from raw Kalshi and Polymarket trades, fees included, and prices every contract under each treatment, the Section 1256 60/40 split included. Both venues net into one federal position. | Compares carrying a loss forward against the three-year carryback under §1212(c), and shows the estimated effect on each prior year. Forms and partner filing arrive in time for the 2026 filing season. |
| PredictionTax | Publishes a free P&L comparing four treatment methods, and generates Form 6781 as a PDF on its paid tier. Reads Kalshi by API and Polymarket on-chain. | Produces documents to download. Its published material describes no filing service and no amended-return path. |
| Crypto tax software (CoinLedger and similar) | Imports a Polymarket wallet and calculates the USDC gains and losses. The Section 1256 question is outside what the category is built to answer. | Exports into a filing product. It does not price a Section 1256 position, so there is no carryback to compare. |
Scroll sideways to see every column.
On producing this year’s numbers, that table lists several options. Our forms and partner filing are not live yet, while PredictionTax generates Form 6781 as a PDF on its paid tier today.
Four things a P&L does not answer.
The three-year carryback, priced against the alternative
A net §1256 loss can be carried back three years against prior §1256 gains under §1212(c), and it is an election, not a default. Carrying it back and carrying it forward put the same loss against different years, and what each produces depends on what you filed in those years. A tool that hands you this year’s forms has not asked the question.
The years you already filed
In a losing year, there may be money in a return you already filed. Getting it out means an amended return, which is a decision about prior years rather than a form for this one.
A December 31 mark that still exists
Section 1256 treats an open position as if you closed it at the final price of the year. Once January arrives, that price is no longer served by either venue, so it has to have been captured at the time. No export downloaded later brings it back.
Both venues, netted
You file one return. Kalshi knows nothing about your Polymarket book and Polymarket knows nothing about your Kalshi book, so a per-venue figure is never the figure that goes on the form.
Asked and answered
Not as a recognized instrument. It publishes no prediction-market flow, so reaching Section 1256 treatment means finding the Contracts and Straddles interview yourself and entering a figure you computed elsewhere. The other paths filers report using, a self-entered 8949 or Miscellaneous Income, produce a different tax answer on the same trades.
It can account for the USDC movement, which is not the same question. Crypto tax tools treat what they find as a property disposal, so they never price the Section 1256 reading, and they do not read Kalshi, so a trader on both venues has no way to net them into the one figure a return needs.
No. At least one other tool is built for event contracts and generates Form 6781 as a download. Realize also reaches backwards: it compares the three-year carryback of a net Section 1256 loss under §1212(c) against carrying it forward, and shows the estimated effect on each already-filed year.
Nobody can tell you that yet. There is no IRS guidance and no court ruling on whether prediction-market event contracts qualify for Section 1256. We compute the position under each reading and show the work behind every figure so that you and your preparer can decide which one you are willing to sign.
Run it against your own trades.
Connect Kalshi or Polymarket with a read-only key and Realize rebuilds the position from your real trades, every figure traceable back to the trade behind it. Tracking is free.
Price your year three common ways.
Your estimate is free. Forms for tax year 2026 open for filing in 2027.