Topic: Update on VAT case in EU Court of Justice (Read 3734 times)

I think its just disgusting that they want to tax everything, they have way too much money and want even more.

Now that the capital controls start to kick in the EU, they are desperate to loot more money from us, until their ponzi scheme collapses.

Thanks for posting. The result of this case will have a significant impact on all EU based bitcoiners.

sounds like they are nothing but a mistake

the former is totally mad - you get charged vat on purchasing a currency then pay double vat for using said currency to buy services - estonian government are smart cookies when it comes to digital and tech, im sure they wont make such a mistake

That's a great summary of the thinking behind VAT and why it makes no sense to put it on bitcoin sales (as opposed to on fees exchanges charge when they sell you bitcoins). The hitch is that not everybody's tax legislation is necessarily well enough written to translate the purpose you describe into law.

I don't know anything about Estonian law but here in Japan it looks like we could end up with a situation where businesses have to collect VAT (1) on bitcoin sales but they can then reclaim it against VAT they already owe, resulting in a lot of paper-shuffling busywork and a net tax take of zero or less. I'm sure the tax authorities would rather avoid doing this, but they may not be able to find an adequate loophole...

(1) Japanese VAT is branded as "consumption tax", apparently because the post-war US occupation authorities levied a VAT and it was unpopular so the current government likes to pretend its tax is different to their tax, but it walks and talks like a VAT.

PS IANAL and I'm just pulling this out of my arse but I wonder if guys like Maidsafe and Ethereum who got around securities laws by claiming to be selling tokens for a service (storage or computing or whatever) will find themselves in a different bucket. If I'm buying storage via Maidsafe it feels like there must be some value added _somewhere_...  If it's not collected when I buy the tokens, when is it collected?

american sales tax vs european VAT are 2 different things..

in america sales tax is meant for anything sold.

in europe VAT is for anything that's become more valuable since its initial creation.

EG potato's dont have VAT, but if a supermarket had a restaurant and cooked the potato's put them on a plate offering a knife and fork, then basically people will perceive that potato to be worth more due to the extra work put into it. thus VAT is added to a cooked meal at a restaurant.

you can buy raw gold VAT free. but as soon as its shaped into something special again VAT is added.

in short look at what VAT stands for "VALUE ADDED TAX" and then think to yourself, what value is being added simply by selling raw bitcoins. the only time i can consider there to ever be VALUE added. is if the bitcoins are sold at a premium due to being in a casasius coin or novelty printed bitcoin bearerbond.

if you ever got charged VAT for selling dollars to euros or euros to pounds, then and only then would anyone consider bitcoin to be in the same situation to be in the scope of VAT. but its not.

i do hate it when people that dont even understand what VAT truly means, tries to suggest that in some manner VAT should be taken for simply swapping currencies

The piece is weirdly worded. I think it's saying that Estonia wants to put VAT on sales of bitcoins (eg if you sell someone 100 Euros of bitcoins you have to collect 20 Euros in VAT), but Germany only wants to put VAT on exchange fees incurred when buying bitcoins, eg if the exchange takes a 1 Euro commission on the 100 Euros they have to collect 20 euro-cents VAT. The former is a bit mad, but the latter would work fine in practice.

excluding bitcoin, mean excluding every other coin as well, they are afraid of this also, too much not taxable shit

yes, thi sis just another bs thing where some country wants to seem cool by trying to regulate something.

yeah, when she said that she redefined the meaning of "fremdschämen" (vicarious embarrassment)

the internet has been around for 20 years ... and still many German towns and villages have no broadband internet access, and politicians say that kind of rubbish ... 

retarded old people elect other retarded old people to rule them, welcome in Germany 

like Queen Merkel said: "Se internet is neuland foar all uff us!"

Germany wants to VAT bitcoin? I don't think so. Most financial services are VAT exempt in Germany; if they apply this to BTC they would have to apply it to stocks, mutual funds, fx and so on, that wont work

Even so, if some countries are dumb enough to charge VAT it just means, no professional exchanges can exist there. Direct deals between individuals, like bitcoin.de, wont be affected and you can always use a SEPA transfer to an exchange in another country that does not charge VAT.

VAT on BTC would have to be worldwide or it won't work, of course old people like Queen Merkel do not understand Bitcoin  

Update on VAT case in EU Court of Justice

I finally have some updates from the case about Bitcoin and VAT that is ongoing in the Court of Justice of the European Union.

http://www.bitcoin.se/2014/12/06/update-on-vat-case-in-eu-court-of-justice/