things are changing down under this is what the Australian government has done
September 30, 2014
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In August, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) released a guidance paper on the tax treatment of crypto-currencies. The ATO stated that the supply of bitcoin is taxable for goods and services tax (GST) purposes. We wrote previously about the steps we’re taking to understand their guidance.
Here’s what we have determined.
The ATO’s Guidance
When you buy bitcoin in Australia, the price quoted to you will include 10% GST, which the seller must pay to the ATO.
When you convert bitcoin to Australian dollars, the guidance is more complicated. If you are not a GST-registered business, GST will not apply when you place a sell order.
However, if you are a GST-registered business you may need to collect the GST as part of your sales.
How this affects you.
Buying bitcoin
If you buy bitcoin at CoinJar, you will be charged 10% GST as of October 3.
We’ll generate a tax invoice showing you how much GST you paid.
Selling bitcoin
If you are a customer selling bitcoin for personal use, there will be no change.
If you’re selling bitcoin on behalf of a GST registered business, you will be prompted to register your GST status at point of sale.
When you submit a sell order, we will ask you to confirm GST collection.
CoinJar will generate a recipient created tax invoice (RCTI) on your behalf for every sell order with GST applied.
At this point, these changes affect CoinJar Filler only. Other CoinJar products, such as the recently launched CoinJar Swipe, will not be affected by this determination.
The Future of Bitcoin in Australia
We’ve worked hard to confirm these changes with the ATO and integrate them into our existing products.
We are updating the system in preparation for this as of midnight tonight. The system will state that all prices include GST, but the price will not increase. We will be applying the 10% charge from 12am October 3. We will cover GST liability on buy orders placed between 12AM October 1 to 12AM October 3.
In many ways the guidance has bought clarity to the position of bitcoin users in Australia. However, we don’t believe the ATO’s guidelines are ideal for bitcoin in this country. We believe in a simpler financial system, and we will continue work with the ATO to help them discover a fairer position.
In nutshell: coinjar has to move to other country or it is the end.