Syla Review 2024: Low-Cost Crypto Tax Software

Is Syla worth the money?

What you get with Syla

Low cost tax reports

Syla is one of the most cost-effective crypto tax reporting options available to Australians. With its entry-level plan priced at just $59, users can get accurate crypto tax reports up to 10,000 transactions. This makes Syla particularly attractive to average cryptocurrency investors and those involved in earn programs or automated trading, given these transactiions can build up quickly, making reporting difficult and confusing.

Accurate tax reports

Syla’s bread-and-butter is its accurate tax reports. The software leverages artificial intelligence to simplify the reporting process. Every transaction fed into Syla is automatically sorted into various categories thanks to “Smart Classification” technology. To ensure the most accurate reporting possible, Syla’s software can even identify transaction fees, airdrops and chain migrations. 

As an Australian company, Syla’s software is designed to service Aussie customers – meaning its tools are geared toward meeting the Australian Tax Office’s obligations. The product also draws historic price data from thousands of crypto assets and fiat currencies, allowing past transactions to be reported as accurately as possible.

Track multiple portfolios

Syla does more than just sort out EOFY tax reports. The software’s front page includes an overview of recent transactions and overall portfolio holdings. This creates a hub for investors to see their investment performance at a glance. Thanks to Syla’s wide array of integrations, your live portfolio will automatically update with any new trades, price swings or airdropped tokens.

Connect your portfolios via API

Supported crypto exchanges, wallets and other portfolios can be connected to the Syla software via a custom-made API key. Each platform comes with its own set of instructions to allow seamless integration. Valid data sources will provide a public and secret key (API) that can be keyed into Syla’s platform. This allows for live-updating transactional and price data from an array of sources, including Swyftx, Coinbase and Metamask.

What are the costs?

Syla offers four plans, each targeted toward a different level of cryptocurrency investor

• The base plan, “Budget” comes in as a $59 annual subscription. This includes support for up to 10,000 transactions and can generate as many ATO tax reports as required.
• The next tier up, “Assurance” is billed at $149 annually. This is identical to the budget plan, except customers can also create assurance reports.
• The “Tax Saving” plan is $249 annually. This tier includes the lowest tax feature, which utilises a proprietary “Lowest-Tax First-Out” method to ensure your transactions are parcelled efficiently.
• The “Private Wealth” plan is the highest tier and costs $389 per year. This plan is ideal for professionals, as it supports up to 100,000 transactions and includes SMSF sync.

Who are the founders of Syla?

Syla was originally founded by Chartered Tax Adviser, Maryna Kovalenko and Product Engineer, Nick Christie, to solve one of the largest problems that affects every Australian crypto investor and their accountant — tax.

Maryna Kovalenko is a Chartered Tax Adviser with 5+ years of experience in the crypto tax industry. She also founded Kova Tax, an accounting and tax advisory service for crypto investors.

Nick Christie is a Brisbane-based product developer who helped refine the technical elements of Syla’s software. He has worked as a product development lead and engineer for several fintech companies in the past, before moving into the cryptosphere in 2018.

What exchanges can I connect?

One of Syla’s most appealing aspects is its integration. The team has “been selected as an approved tax integration partner for every major Australian crypto exchange”. For Aussies that use a mix of platforms like Swyftx and CoinSpot, this ensures a seamless transition between trading and tax reporting.

However, experienced traders often use international exchanges to leverage deep liquidity or the benefits of decentralised platforms. Syla supports over 500 platforms, including major exchanges (Binance, Coinbase, Kraken), wallets (MetaMask, Ledger) and chain data (Bitcoin, Ethereum).  

If your platform of choice isn’t directly supported by Syla, you can export and import historic transaction data via CSV.

Is Syla accurate for tax reporting?

• Syla has been designed by a strong line-up of tax professionals, boasting many qualifications including: Chartered Accountant (CA), Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA), Registered Tax Agent and Member of the Institute of Public Accountants (MIPA), Tax Lawyer (LLB) and a SMSF specialist adviser (SSA).

• The tax module in Syla is the only one of its kind, having been built specifically and only for Australian tax law. The focus on Australian tax means that each type of assessable income in Australian tax law has been considered and will be classified correctly for you, including:
  • Capital Gains (including the CGT discount)
  • Ordinary Income (in particular, Sales of Trading Stock and Derivatives)
  • Foreign Currency Gains
  • Non-Assessable Income (from genuine gambling activities)

• This gives us a lot more confidence that the tax calculations and final tax report produced by Syla are accurate. When we compare this to other popular tax software, we don’t see the same level of detail, for example, Syla was the only software we reviewed that has distinct treatment for Foreign Currency Gains and for Non-Assessable Income. This makes sense when you consider that all other crypto tax software has been built primarily for the USA which probably doesn’t have the same types of income, since the tax law is different compared to Australia. It’s good to know that Syla has gone into this level of detail to ensure all Australian tax considerations have been taken into account.

• For those who are active traders or businesses, Syla has a specific tax treatment for you where your crypto will be treated as Trading Stock instead of Capital Gains. Most software we’ve reviewed only consider capital gains, so it was also great to see that Syla has implemented this advanced tax treatment for those who are active traders or business, and not investors.
  • https://www.syla.com.au/blog/crypto-trader-vs-investor

• There’s lots of other small details which are specific to Australia that Syla takes care of for you automatically. Another example is the CGT discount on long-term capital gains held over 12 months, for individuals the discount is 50%, but for SMSFs it’s only 33.33%, and for companies there’s no CGT discount. Syla ensures this tax configuration is done for you, since it’s the only crypto tax software designed specifically for Australia.

How to use Syla’s crypto tax software

Syla’s tax software is designed to be as easy to use as possible.

Import

The first step is to important data from all relevant data sources. Where available, customers can plug-n-play an API from supported exchanges (like Swyftx and CoinSpot) that automatically syncs historic and new transactions. Investors can also import CSV files from exchanges, wallets and other crypto-related platforms into the Syla software. 

Review your information

The benefit of using automated crypto tax software is avoiding the grind of filling out a spreadsheet for every trade, transaction fee and other disposal event. However, it is still vital to review the information provided to ensure it is accurate and you aren’t missing any transactions. 

Download your report

Once you’ve confirmed the data is good to go, Syla will generate a tax report that can be downloaded and used to sort your own taxes. Alternatively, investors can hand the document to their professional tax accountant. 

What about their customer service?

All support from Syla is based in Australia and available during regular business hours (9am-6pm).

The main support channel is through the in-app live chat, which you can request help at any time. In our experience, the support through the live-chat has been very quick and it usually only takes a few minutes to get a response.

There is also email support via support@syla.com.au