Australia’s Tax Office Guidelines Open Door to Double Taxing, Other Problems
The Bitcoin cause might have taken a small step backward last week with the announcement by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) that Bitcoin would not be considered “money” for tax purposes. The move is, to say the least, an interesting one when we consider the popularity of Bitcoin in the country and the large number of Bitcoin startups, including more than 100 Bitcoin ATMs expected by 2015 nationwide. “Bitcoin is no more anonymous than physical cash and the ATO has experience in working with earlier forms of anonymous electronic money systems, and with physical cash, which are relevant for....
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In early April the National Australia Bank (NAB) decided to cut ties with the bitcoin community and close any accounts that primarily dealt with the digital currency on May 2. The NAB believes dealing with digital currencies is too risky. Less than one week later, Australia’s first bitcoin ATM went live in Sydney, the first of several proposed ATMs in the land down under. To round off the month, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is preparing to meet with head figures of the Bitcoin industry along with accounting and tax experts to prepare guidelines on taxing and regulating all virtual....
Creating a healthy regulatory ecosystem for Bitcoin and digital currency will not be an easy task. The Financial Services Agency in Japan will soon present their plan to regulate this new breed of finance, although it will have little to no effect on the current way of taxing Bitcoin. Bitcoin is often frowned upon for its alleged lack of regulatory guidelines when it comes to using the digital currency as a method of payment. However, people tend to forget various countries around the world are treating Bitcoin as either an asset or currency and impose taxation upon usage of the digital....
ATO (Australian Taxation Office) just released its guidance on the tax treatment of cryptocurrencies. The set of regulations coincides with Australia's 2013-1014 income tax returns. It has been a long time coming as CoinTelegraph initially reported that the ATO is planning to prepare the guidelines, and then postponing, then offering slightly more clarity, and now here we are. Bitcoin's popularity in Australia as well as New Zealand is booming, and increasingly more local startups are looking to adopt the cryptocurrency. Currently, there are 190 active companies in Australia using Bitcoin....
The Australian Government announced in its report entitled “Backing Australia's Fintech” that the current double tax law on digital currencies including Bitcoin is soon to be reformed. Digital currencies such as Bitcoin were in 2014 established by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) as intangible assets for goods and services tax purposes. Thus, payments involving bitcoin have been considered as a form of barter rather than conventional transactions. However, the major issue with the GST law on digital currencies is that Australian residents who purchase items or goods using bitcoin are....
Over a year after the Australian government promised to put an end to the double taxation of bitcoin purchases, authorities are yet to formally legislate the changes. Under still-current rules mandated by the Australian Tax Office, bitcoin is seen as an “intangible” property. By definition then, bitcoin is a money instrument and cannot be a “negotiable instrument.” Taxing Bitcoin Transactions. Twice. ‘This means that existing laws dictated a double tax on bitcoin, once when exchanging fiat for digital currency, and goods and services tax (GST) applied again when a digital currency is used....