Australian Bitcoin Industry Reacts to Tax Proposals
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) today released its long-awaited guidelines on how bitcoin businesses and individual users will be taxed in Australia. The guidelines are similar in nature to those issued by Singapore in January, which received a mixed response from the bitcoin community. In summary, bitcoins will not be regarded as 'money', and will be taxed in a similar way to other non-cash or barter transactions. As in Singapore, this raises the specter of double-taxation for some bitcoin transactions. Likely to be impacted most are businesses who have been transacting in bitcoin and....
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The Australian government has announced that it will back a legislative solution to tax concerns surrounding bitcoin as part of a broad policy statement on financial technology. Under current tax guidance in the country, bitcoin is considered a form of barter rather than a form of money. Australian businesses must pay goods-and-services tax (GST) if they sell digital currencies, and can be liable for the tax should they receive them as payment. This policy has sparked criticism from the startup community in Australia, who argue it creates an unfair tax environment. Last summer, the....
“What is clear is that if we embrace these developments, Australia has an enormous opportunity to capitalize on the convergence between finance and technology,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said. The Australian government is seriously consider the rollout of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and has backed numerous forward-looking regulatory crypto-proposals as part of a new “payments and crypto reform plan.”Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says the reforms "will firmly place Australia among a handful of lead countries in the world."The reform plan is said to be the biggest shake-up of the....
Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIP) are proposals for making change to the Bitcoin network. These proposals on the blockchain are activated after gaining the required consensus from the Bitcoin community. While it is a standard practice for Bitcoin Core developers to introduce BIPs, these may require more than just technical expertise to ensure positive growth of Bitcoin as a currenc. Over the past two years, a number of Bitcoin Improvement Proposals have been put forth by various members of the Bitcoin community. These proposals call for the block size to be increased from anywhere....
Bitcoin payment processor Bitnet has indicated it is willing to implement block-increase proposals other than BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) 101. This makes Bitnet the third signatory of the industry letter supporting BIP 101 that indicates that it is open to alternative proposals. Bitnet co-founder and CTO Stephen McNamara told Bitcoin Magazine that he is still convinced that the block-size limit must be increased sooner rather than later. While the industry letter sent out in August of this year expressed support for BIP 101, which increases the block-size limit to 8 megabytes and....
Australian banks have advised Australian bitcoin companies they are closing their accounts, according to The Australian Financial Review. The publication has seen the letters from Westpac Banking Corporation and Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Ron Tucker, chairman of The Australian Digital Currency Commerce Association, said all large Australian banks were shutting the door on bitcoin companies. The banks sent letters to Australian bitcoin exchanges, including Bit Trade and Buyabitcoin. The letters said the banks will close the exchanges' accounts and did not give any explanation. At least....