Topic: Tax when buying bitcoins in an exchange (Read 6043 times)

Out of curiosity, did you get this in writing? Is advice given by whoever you asked binding, or is it more "as far as we know at the moment"?

You can ask government officials many things, but their words may often not be legally binding.

Could you please tell me what was a process of confirming that bitcoins are not a financial instrument?  If you mentioned somewhere else could you post a link to that post. Thank you.

Dont admit to anything (tm)

The three months have elapsed without any answer: that means I can apply the tax treatment I presented until the law changes and it wont be retroactive.

In most countries, VAT (or a similar tax) will be paid by the seller, not the buyer. So you should expect the exchange you are using to be paying the tax if they have to. If they happen to reside in a country where the VAT has to be indicated, you should have received an invoice stating the tax amount, otherwise they'll most likely not have paid the tax.

If you want to run your own exchange, it depends on you local laws. But most countries will have some regulations to prevent double taxation of VAT for the same goods, and to prevent VAT to be added to the purchase price of used goods on their resale. You should look at how your country's tax laws handle these cases, then you'll probably be able to come up with a strategy for having the tax applied to only your service fees. This might well require some record-keeping to be done.

When BTC is accepted as a currency in a country, this issue will most likely be greatly simplified. On the other hand, it might not be advisable to press for such a change as this would cause many interesting new services invented by BTC-enthusiasts to be subject to banking laws.

Anyone feel like admitting they paid capital gains taxes on their US tax return due April 17, 2012?

I haven't found anyone yet, but I'm sure there's someone out there who made enough money that they are willing to share some with the US govt!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=73632.40

They came back to me just now as well, so I guess I have you to thank. Probably we're the only two people that bought it with Bitcoin :-).

After not receiving a response from HowToVanish, I contacted RunToGold. They gave me a direct link to the download and said they corrected the mistake.

Yes, some EU businesses, particularly those that have low turnover are typically VAT exempt. Also, currency (as in that declared so by states) is VAT exempt. There are some further exceptions, e.g. some gold sales (not all though).

There is the EU VAT for e-services directive, which applies to digital services such as Skype. If you are selling digital services/goods to EU citizens, you have to register for VAT in one of the EU states and charge VAT (unless, obviously, you already are registered for VAT). As far as I know, there is no minimal threshold for this.

My point was more directed towards a situation where there already is a merchant selling some goods and he wants to get into Bitcoin by selling them to his customers. The second issue is imports: normally the customs charges you VAT upon import of goods. Maybe this also applies to Bitcoins, I don't know. The other cases where the VAT comes into play are probably not a big issue.

I was just looking at Swiss and UK VAT:
In Switzerland your revenue has to be at least 100'000 CHF (~100'000 dollars, 70'000GBP), meaning most people would be exempt. In the UK there is a limit of £73'000 for VAT registration. Thus most individuals in those two countries would be exempt. If you go above these limits you have to register for VAT, but I'm not yet sure whether you would be required to charge VAT on bitcoin sales (Gold for example is exempt in both UK and CH if for investment). [On a related note Skype charge VAT when you buy skype credit, i.e. if I buy 5 CHF skype credit I get charged 5.08 CHF since VAT is 8%. But skype credit is quite different to bitcoin.]

With respect to exchange's fees: I'm not fully certain as to what the status is there. Ebay has to charge VAT on their fees, I'm assuming something similar is the case with exchanges based in the EU for EU customers. On the other hand since I'm not an EU resident but use a EU exchange I should then not have VAT charged, which makes things complicated for the exchange -- I would also have to look into whether I need to pay Swiss VAT on online services abroad... When goods are sent by post, if I would have to pay less than 5CHF VAT then the VAT is waived -- with the amounts I buy and since fees are even smaller by comparison, I would be exempt.

// Update: turns out that by offering services in Switzerland you make yourself liable to swiss taxation laws. I.e. by delivering services online to Switzerland you are acting as if you were active in Switzerland as well. This would only affect any business being offered in Switzerland, and I assume that the volume of sale there would be minimal, meaning VAT could be ignored by exchanges offering services in Switzerland.

Under French law, the administration may take up to 3 months to respond. If they dont, that means I can apply the treatment I presented until the law changes and it wont be retroactive.
Given the subject matter, I doubt that they will take much LESS than 3 months

Meni,

I had the same problem (wrong book, no replies). Ended up buying the book on amazon (kindle edition).

I bought this ebook but got a different ebook instead. I tried contacting the author but got no reply. Anyone able to upload it somewhere?

A lot of the arguments he made are applicable to EU and Canada, I agree, but some are not. Here are some that I found out:
- EU has a directive for e-money, however it most likely does not apply to Bitcoin, because it makes the assumption that e-money is a debt instrument
- he claims that forex losses are not deductible in the US, whereas a google search shows that in many other countries, they are (also my own experience supports this)
- in countries with a general sales tax (e.g. VAT in the EU, GST in Canada), if Bitcoin trades are barter goods, it looks like this sales tax is to be levied when sold. US does not have this

A CA lawyer has written a guide A Lawyer's Take On Bitcoins And Taxes. From a US perspective but some of the principles or arguments may be applicable to those in other jurisdictions like Europe or Canada.

Did you get the answer?

Interesting thread.
I am writing to the tax authorities of France to ask them if bitcoins can be treated as "digital gold", i.e just like gold for tax purposes.
The argument I am making is that bitcoins cannot be treated as a security nor as a currency since there is no issuer.
I cite the 1998 European Directive that states that gold as a store of value is exempt of VAT so I have the benefits of two options to chose from:

1/ 8% on the amount of the sale (for instance when selling bitcoins that I mined)

2/ 31.3% on capital gains when I sell if I can document my prior purchase. In this case I get a 10% discount for each year of the holding period starting with the third year (i.e. no more taxes after a 12 year hoolding period). If I cannot document the purchase then I am going with the 8% rate on the total amount of the sale.

I'll keep you posted on the answer I get from the administration.

I prefer to read the actual legislation which is why I posted the link to Canadian Excise Tax Act that applies to the GST. There is a critical difference between "money" and "currency" here as Bitcoin clearly qualifies as "money" but is not "currency".

Interesting topic.

I'm quite confident that it will not qualify as an official financial instrument. At least in Finland it doesn't. I verified this from the financial regulators of Finland. It then applies to VAT because everything applies to VAT except the exceptions and at least in Finland it doesn't qualify for any of the exceptions.

So if you're not sure about it, simply ask the financial regulators in your country and find out.