Ask HN: Bitcoin/crypto and taxes – how does it work, worldwide?

5 points·simonebrunozzi··4 comments

In my country (EU), the tax authority has explicitly stated that profits from crypto trading are treated as capital gains. This means roughly 12% of your profits are taxed. However, this also means that if you've been hodling for over 2 yrs, you're exempt (still need to report it).

Now, the catch 22 is that the taxman in my country is still not technically sophisticated enough to be able to determine your holding period (although everything is public), so everything is still theoretical.

Germany, apparently, has similar thing. Two years and a day, and you're tax-free. (1) Spend 6 months there to get tax residency, (2) declare it after having been hodling for 2yrs + 1 day, (3) profit (tax-free). Never checked it myself, so it's purely anecdotal.

If you make profits you should declare them like any other person. You'll be taxed as a trader, more specifically a FOREX trader, as you are trading with currencies.

That's not always true. In the US, for example, Bitcoin is not a currency, but it's treated like property. Therefore, you pay long term capital gains if you have held BTC for more than 1 year. Also, in the US capital gain depends on your income, which is why, for example, Steve Jobs had a salary of $1 as CEO of Apple.

If you make cash profits, you should declare them, probably

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