Topic: Bitcoins and Tax in Austria (Read 973 times)

The implications for your due taxes would be significant, depending upon the choice you make (either FIFO or LIFO methods). So I would suggest you to try both FIFO and LIFO calculators, which will help you decide which method is better for you. You can download it for the very reasonable price of $10 each from the Eloquens.com marketplace.

Bitcoin Cryptocurrency FIFO Gain Calculator for Taxation
https://www.eloquens.com/tool/3MdIAv/engineering/cryptocurrency-excel-templates/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-fifo-gain-calculator-for-taxation

Bitcoin Cryptocurrency LIFO (Last In First Out) Gain Calculator for Taxation https://www.eloquens.com/tool/3B4lfy9X/engineering/cryptocurrency-excel-templates/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-lifo-last-in-first-out-gain-calculator-for-taxation

I hope that after comparing the gains using the FIFO and LIFO methods, you will be in a better position to minimize your tax implications, save time, and maximize your gains.
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I love Bitcoin
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Haha yer i know, i get that alot  . Thanks alot for the info, youve been super informative!

I'm a freelancer that does his own bookkeeping so by now I've been navigating Austrian tax forms for quite a while. Luckily only a fraction of tax forms is relevant to me and I have a tax advisor to see me through.

An Australian living in Austria? Sounds like the beginning of a typo joke

About tax reporting: Unless you're lending out coins on the likes of Poloniex it's likely that only income tax will apply to you.

The end of the financial year is December 31st to January 1st. For handing in your income tax reports there are two deadlines:

1) 30th of April when filing old school paper forms

2) 30th of June when filing online via FinanzOnline

I'd definitely recommend going with option 2) as it's more convenient. However you'll have to register for FinanzOnline first which will require personal identification via mail (Ident.Brief).

Note that if you have a tax advisor they are usually able to push back that deadline for you.

For reference regarding tax report deadlines (German, sorry):
https://www.bmf.gv.at/steuern/selbststaendige-unternehmer/einkommensteuer/est-einkommensteuererklaerungspflicht.html#Erkl_rungsfrist

FinanzOnline:
https://finanzonline.bmf.gv.at/

Thanks for the reply, again very helpful. Yer thats kind of what im thinking/hoping would be the case, where i would only have to pay taxes on the profits/appreciation when i sold the 30 OMG back to ETH to diversify to LTC. At the third step im kind of hoping that 1. there would be no taxes on the conversion of both OMG and LTC back to ETH as i bought them both with ETH over a year ago and 2. there would be very minimal taxes to be paid during the cashout as there would be very small movements between me purchasing the ETH and then cashing out in EUR.

At the moment im adding notes to all transactions where ive converted altcoins back to ETH to fund other purchases, hopefully this will save my a** come reporting time..

Last question as you seem to be relatively educated (more than me anyway) on Austrian tax. I've actually lived my life in Australia and lodging tax information is done in October due to the financial year being July 30th to June 1st. When is tax reporting meant to be done in Austria haha.

Honestly, at that point I'd just get myself a tax advisor. At best they help keeping the Finanzamt off your back, at worst they can tell you which forms to fill out.

As for your example:

The last step seems pretty straightforward -- OMG and LTC have been held for a year and are thus tax-free, buying and selling the ETH would likely be taxable since you didn't hold the ETH long enough, however since no profits have been made, there's no taxes to be paid (Note that additional income of I think less than EUR 600,- does not need to be taxed, so small Euro profits that could occur while moving OMG to ETH to EUR are likely negligible).

However I have absolutely no idea how your third step, converting OMG back to ETH for a profit would be taxed. I assume that this is a taxable event (ie. income tax would apply for your profits) however I have no idea how this profit would be calculated. I guess the EUR value of 30 OMG at the time you sell it minus the EUR value of 30 OMG at the time you buy it? Would be consistent with how mining is taxed, but seems kinda weird when applied to trading. Unfortunately the only examples I've come across so far only cover trading between fiat and crypto. I personally don't daytrade alts, so I have no experience in this regard.

Keeping track of your trades is a good start however. Make sure you can also proof your transactions to the Finanzamt however that may be. I guess blockchain explorer links and trade history records as provided by the exchanges themselves should be sufficient, but I have yet to find out.

Maybe ask the guys from the German local boards. There are some Austrians over there as well and either way, Austrian tax law regarding cryptos is pretty close to Germany's.

Hey there, thanks for this information it was very helpful! My question would be what kind of taxes am i subject to in the following example:

Mon 22.01.2018 - i purchase 1 ETH with 1000 Euro
Tue 23.01.2018 - i purchase lets say 60 OMG with that 1 ETH
Mon 05.02.2018 - i then want to diversify as OMG has appreciated and convert 30 OMG back to 0.7 ETH
Tue 06.02.2018 - i use the 0.7 ETH to purchase 4 LTC (at this point i own 30 OMG and 4 LTC)
Mon 04.03.2019 - after a year of holding i decide to convert my 30 OMG and 4 LTC back into 6000 ETH as i would need ETH to exchange back into Euro. I cash out with 600,000 Euro.

I have made some trades where ive had to change from one currency to ETH just so i can purchase a different one which i plan to hold for over a year, am not sure what taxes i need to keep an eye out for.. Luckily ive been keeping a decent record of trades using a tracking app but if i need to calculate profits/losses for every exchange i think my mind will overload hahah.

What prevents you from every day to buy ATM 250 euros? Why do you need large sums of money? If you are interested in how to make a large purchase then you can take a Bank loan. Nobody cares how you will pay. But to purchase a house or car, you will have a legal base. Any law can always be legal to circumvent.

You would pay income tax (Einkommenssteuer) at the end of the financial year by way of making a tax declaration (Steuererklärung) of your total income from all sources (ZB Selbstständige Internet Arbeit & Nicht Selbstständige Arbeit) if that income exceeds €11000 per annum.

I do not know what income tax from operations with Bitcoin is installed in Austria, but clearly it can not be 50 percent. Such a high tax rate would drive the income of citizens from the crypto currency into the shadow, especially since it is not difficult to do this at all.

No. If you just buy BTC, and hold BTC, there's nothing to report.

If you daytrade or received BTC as payment in exchange for goods or services, you need to report the profits in your income tax report (Einkommensteuererklärung).

If you bought BTC and sell it after 1 year of holding you're free to report it, but you're not obliged to do so. Either way there's no tax to be paid for profits on a BTC sale after 1 year of holding.


Here is some fairly reliable information on how Bitcoin is taxed in Austria:

https://bitcoin-austria.at/de/artikel/bitcoin-steuern-oesterreich/20170301_Bitcoin%20und%20Steuerrecht_Folien.pdf

Compared with tax authorities that recognise Bitcoin as a financial service (eg, Spain) and thus exclude Bitcoin transactions from value added tax (VAT), Austrian tax doctrine and draft publications by the tax authorities refer to the fact that Bitcoin is not legal tender; thus, bitcoins are qualified as intangible assets. Special provisions for transactions related to foreign currencies may apply. Further, for income tax purposes, bitcoin holdings do not qualify as savings.

I've heard also that at the moment in the Netherlands BTC is still Tax free. Sounds like a good reason to move there depending on how long that still lasts of course ^^

50% taxation sounds more like a way of making BTC less attractive for the Masses, on the other hand it could also be positive for the stability of the price, if you would have to pay 50% tax you'd probably think twice before changing your BTC back to FIAT

What about wenn you don't sell the BTC, do you have to report them then or only when you are exchanging back to FIAT money?

Don't worry, I'm pretty sure that OP misunderstood something in that regard as Austria has been rather sane regarding Bitcoin taxation.

This proves that bitcoin is really a help to boost the economy of the nation thru imposing tax for every bitcoin transactions but i think the 50% tax imposed are too much. This policy needs to be regulate because it most likely some people will stop investing in bitcoin because most of the bitcoin users are already complaining to the transaction fees imposed by the wallet then the said tax is another burden.

What do you mean by "directly extract Bitcoin from a recent transaction"? I'm not aware of any lump sum 50% taxation on Bitcoin in Austria.


Here is what I've gathered so far:

1) If you hold BTC for longer than a year you don't have to pay taxes on capital gains.

2) If you receive BTC as payment (ie. for goods, services or mining) or have speculative winnings (trading, selling before the 1 year holding time is over) you have to declare and pay income tax, with the profits being taxed according to your overall income (including non-BTC income). Income is calculated based on the BTC exchange rate at the time the profit / income is generated. Expenses such as electricity cost for mining can be subtracted from your income. I think this also applies to trading losses, but I'm not 100% sure.

3) If you commercially sell BTC you have to pay sales tax on the markup (where applicable).

4) If I'm not mistaken in some cases side income of up to about EUR 700,- per year is tax free. This seems to be true in general, but may be useful for BTC gains as well.


About the documents / IDs: As far as I know there's no clear legal ruling on for which amounts which documents / proofs are needed. The limits as currently imposed by BTC vendors in Austria is rather weird, as for example you can still buy EUR 9.999,- worth of gold without ID. However the limits as applied by commercial BTC vendors appears to be based on a very conservative interpretation of current anti-money-laundering regulations. Most online exchanges (even those that closely follow regulatory guidelines) are not quite as strict.


Disclaimer: Alle Angaben ohne Gewähr

Is anyone well informed on the subject of Tax Paying in Austria?

What I have been able to find out at the moment is the Following:

If you directlecty extract Bitcoin from a recent trasaction you pay 50% Tax

If you can prove that the transaction that you made which got you the bitcoins is older than one year it becomes tax free.

If you want to extract bitcoin you can do it at an bitcoin ATM Upto 250€ without any form of document
- after 500€ you have to show ID
and anything higher than that upto 5000€ you have to prove where you got the bitcoins from.

Anybody better informed on the Topic can that confirm this?