Wow, great questions. I hope to delve into these more thoroughly in part 4.

"Do you imagine SBD payouts were need to be considered income?"

SBD payouts may be technically different enough to trigger different liability requirements. I personally buy SP not Steem via Blocktrades when I add to my Steemit account, because if that turns out to be an issue, I want to be on the right side of it. For those same reasons, I have considered moving all my posts to 100% power-up too, but haven't pulled the trigger there yet. I need to refresh myself on the exact wording of certain IRS regulations and do additional research before I forego the gambling on an SBD price increase.

"What would you consider if they are used to buy Steem, which is then powered in to Steem Power?"

Again, I fear the technical existence of this additional step (relative to powering up directly) may very well create a different legal reality.

I think the source of your SBD payout may be important in determining what type of income it is. Did your SBD payout come from hard work authoring, which may be arguably a form of income? Did your SBD payout come from self-voting, possibly making it some form of capital dividend paid to yourself?

I'm not entirely sure myself, and I am working on the research for these questions for part 4 now.

I think your tool is a great idea, however my programming is quite rusty so, technically speaking, I am not of much use. I don't think we could create a tool that would, for example, differentiate the two SBD situations I highlighted above. That would require subjective analysis or self-reporting. Correct me if I am wrong?

This would be a great idea to revisit if we have produced a viable tax reporting strategy by the end of part 5.