New IRS guidance has confirmed that pre-2018 exchanges of Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin do not qualify for Section 1031 exchange treatment. Prior to 2018, taxpayers were permitted to defer capital gains taxes under Section 1031 for certain exchanges of personal property (1031 is now limited only to exchanges of real property). The IRS’s rationale is that these were not exchanges of like-kind property and so were taxable even prior to tax reform.