Not Legal Advice... is a monthly column from Zachary Kelman, Cointelegraph’s general counsel. He is a New York-licensed attorney specializing in political, legal and regulatory issues surrounding Bitcoin, digital currencies and blockchain technology. For two decades, United States presidents kept the American military in Afghanistan to back the fragile local government, tasked with keeping the Taliban at bay. Earlier this month, the U.S. military left, and the Afghan government that the U.S. armed forces supported collapsed like a pitched tent whose pole had been removed. It was obvious to all observers that fundamental change in Afghanistan was always impossible, and …

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Dubai are among the friendliest jurisdictions for the cryptocurrency industry, according to Stephen Stonberg, CEO of Bittrex Global crypto exchange. Dubai is likely to benefit from the expanding crypto market in the Middle East as local regulators increasingly accept blockchain-related technologies, Stonberg said in a Sunday Bloomberg interview. The UAE and Dubai are “doing all the right things and they’re going to attract a lot of regional projects” in the cryptocurrency industry, Stonberg said. He stated that these jurisdictions provide a “great place” to set up a token project or run a cryptocurrency exchange, …

Digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future has publicly called out Alabama lawmaker Richard Shelby for preventing an amendment clarifying the role of crypto in the infrastructure bill to be addressed in the United States Senate. Fight for the Future has used donations it received in cryptocurrency to place a billboard in Birmingham, Alabama asking lawmakers not to support measures it believes would harm crypto and blockchain firms. Shelby, one of two senators representing Alabama since 1987, objected to the introduction of a crypto amendment to infrastructure bill HR 3684 that was under consideration in the Senate at the …

Amid the enormous success of crypto-powered game Axie Infinity in the Philippines, the local Department of Finance has made clear that it wants a cut of profits generated by playing Axie and other play-to-earn games. An August 23 report from Inquirer cites Philippine Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko as clarifying that any profits gleaned through play-to-earn games are subject to income tax. “Cryptocurrency is an asset, so it’s already taxable in the Philippines [...] whoever earns currency from it, it’s income you should report it,” she said. While the official asserted that that play-to-earn gains “are subject to income tax,” Tionko …

Lawrence Zlatkin, global VP of tax at Coinbase, has taken aim at the rushed cryptocurrency provisions added to Congress’ bipartisan infrastructure bill “at the last minute,” slamming lawmakers for hastily inserting amendments that could impact “60 million Americans.” In a Saturday blog post taking aim at a Thursday, Aug. 19, editorial article from Bloomberg that praised the infrastructure bill’s crypto provisions, Zlatkin criticized the lack of opportunity for public discourse regarding the legislation, estimating that 20% of the United States population are invested in digital assets: “Today, around 60 million Americans own crypto — roughly one-fifth of the entire U.S. …

Zachary Kelman, general counsel of Cointelegraph, said that the political fight over the tax implications for crypto in the United States infrastructure bill is nothing new, as it’s likely about how lawmakers plan to pay for everything. In an interview with Cointelegraph's Jackson DuMont, Kelman claimed that senators pushing the crypto language in the infrastructure bill — which ultimately passed in the U.S. Senate after one senator objected to a clarifying amendment — may have been more influenced by political concerns than ones potentially affecting the crypto space. Namely, the general counsel claimed that lawmakers know that crypto firms “can't …

In her monthly Expert Take column, Selva Ozelli, an international tax attorney and CPA, covers the intersection between emerging technologies and sustainability, and provides the latest developments around taxes, AML/CFT regulations and legal issues affecting crypto and blockchain. Since 2013, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, has been discussing the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) risks of large multinational enterprises (MNEs) — risks arising from the digitalization of the global economy. BEPS 2.0 reports came out in 2018 and 2019, aiming to ensure a fairer distribution of the rights to tax the profits of large MNEs, …

It was a topsy turvy week — “staggering,” a crypto veteran called it. One that saw United States Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Ron Wyden collaborate on behalf of the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry — albeit, in a lost cause. These events could eventually pave the way for future regulatory success, though it may not seem that way now. To recap: The Biden Administration’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill was supposed to be all about roads and bridges but as the Senate vote approached, it also became about cryptocurrency taxation. Thanks to a last-minute provision added to the bill, which some …

Representative Anna Eshoo has written to Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi on Thursday, expressing concerns about the controversial new mandate for crypto tax reporting. In it, she urged Pelosi to amend the cryptocurrency broker definition in the Senate’s controversial infrastructure bill. Eshoo claimed that miners, validators and developers of wallets would be unable to comply with the crypto tax reporting requirements. Today I urged Speaker Pelosi to amend the cryptocurrency broker language in the Senate’s infrastructure bill. The legislation imposes new reporting requirements on miners, validators & developers of wallets who would be unable to …

Cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has launched a free tax reporting service for users based in Australia. In an announcement today, Crypto.com said it had tailored its existing tax services for United States- and Canada-based crypto users to allow Australians to accurately report cryptocurrencies on their taxes. The exchange said it worked with professional tax advisers to ensure that the service was consistent with laws for filing cryptocurrency taxes in the country. Crypto.com allows users to import their crypto transaction records into a tax reporting platform such as TokenTax and generate a report to be filed with the authorities — the Internal …

Already classified as a unicorn startup, United States-based cryptocurrency tax software developer TaxBit now has a valuation of more than $1.3 billion after a recent funding round. According to a Thursday announcement, IVP and Insight Partners led a $130 Series B funding round for TaxBit with participation from Bitcoin bull Anthony "Pomp" Pompliano, Tiger Global, Paradigm, 9Yards Capital, Sapphire Ventures and Madrona Venture Group. The company said it planned to use the funds — which bring its valuation to $1.33 billion — to scale its tax and accounting offerings system as well as open new offices in the United States …

The Iranian National Tax Administration (INTA) is pushing to establish a legal framework for the taxation of crypto trading platforms operating in the country, according to a new proposal by the country’s tax authority. Two months after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s call for a legal framework for crypto trading, INTA reportedly detailed the necessity of legalizing digital asset exchanges in a proposal quoted by the local media. Reminding Iranian regulators that a legal framework is required for levying taxes, INTA said that the government should only allow authorized exchanges to convert currency while keeping track of transactions. The tax authority …