Regulatory Series on Cryptocurrency: Tax Authorities Become Cognizant on Cryptocurrency Taxation

In the recent trend, the tax authorities have been meticulously framing the taxation norms on cryptocurrencies.

Recently, the British tax, payments and customs authority, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has updated its cryptocurrency taxation guidelines for businesses and individuals. The U.K. government tax agency who administers taxes in conjunction with the fiscal policy making, have recently updated the tax guidance.

While IRS (Internal Revenue Services) appears to be considering tax evasion meticulously that stems from the cryptocurrency use and taking necessary control points to address this. Of late, the tax authorities have been constantly shedding light on crypto-taxation norms.

The US IRS has released criminal investigation annual report 2019 that has established its milestone of 100 years of law enforcement.

For now, the South Korean government urges for taxation on the capital gains from cryptocurrencies. The renowned South Korean news outlet Korea Times reports that the government intends to introduce the capital gains taxes on digital currencies, like bitcoin, ether etc. The latest action taken by the Ministry of Economy and Finance is most likely to become part of tax regulation in 2020. A revised tax regulation bill is going to be drafted by Q2’2020.

Elsewhere, in yet another case, a Crypto accounting firm and CPA.com has entered into a partnership pact to launch a new software ahead of tax season. The JV between crypto software company ‘Lukka and accounting service CPA.com’ is designing and developing the crypto tax tools for accounting procedures.

Well, the recent developments in taxation regime on cryptocurrencies are constructive thing. However, in order for such new product development, regulatory and legislative movements to be pragmatic, we need to have a defined flow of procedures and more clarity on crypto assets. It will also need to decide if cryptocurrency capital gains are to be classified in the same way as profits from stock market trading or instead, like income from property dealings. To levy taxes, auditors should begin to figure out trading records from cryptocurrency exchanges and to collate such data, one should have unified rule for data collection and validation.