The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, or IRAS, issued updated tax guidance for digital tokens on April 17. The guidelines concern payment tokens, utility tokens, security tokens, and tokens issued through initial coin offerings, or ICOs. Fluctuations in the value tokens held by miners, ICO issuers, businesses, and individuals are not taxable or deductible unless realized. Businesses handling tokens receive usual treatment Despite emphasizing that payment tokens are not legal tender, Singapore’s new guidelines state that transactions executed using payment tokens “are viewed as barter trade.” When receiving payment tokens, a business will incur normal tax obligations based on the …

Cybercriminals are taking full advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced life into a digital realm, by leveraging increased fear and uncertainty to steal money and launder it through the complex cryptocurrency ecosystem. Accordingly, the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement, known as the J5, has ramped up its efforts by arresting cybercriminals suspected of laundering millions of dollars in cryptocurrency, according to a J5 joint statement. The J5 also has been updating its Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism laws for cryptocurrencies in accordance with Financial Action Task Force standards, with Australian researchers having linked half …

Despite being roundly rejected by a vocal majority of the Bitcoin Cash community, a controversial miner’s tax is still causing rifts among the coin’s adherents. In January, a conglomerate of Bitcoin Cash mining companies suggested an enforced 12.5% tax on BCH miners as a way of funding community development. After weeks of debate, the main signatories of the tax plan (comprising a majority of Bitcoin Cash mining power) reversed their decision, and the Infrastructure Funding Plan, or IFP, was dropped. Bitcoin Cash miner’s tax still a possibility? Merely a month away from the next Bitcoin Cash technical update, the IFP …

Blockchain-native software and tax services company, Lukka, has been chosen to provide crypto taxation software to the fifth-largest accounting firm in the United States, RSM. Cointelegraph spoke to Lukka CCO Jeremy Drane, and RSM senior manager of international tax and blockchain/cryptocurrency, Jamison Sites, to find out more about the partnership between the two firms. Lukka provides crypto tax software to RSM clients The deal will see RSM’s tax clients provided with the ‘Lukka Crypto Office’ and ‘LukkaTax for Professionals’ software to assist the tax preparation needs of both individuals and enterprises. Jamison Sites states that RSM began researching various crypto …

Could this be the year the world gets serious about cryptocurrency taxation? The coronavirus pandemic, after all, could cost the global economy as much as $4.1 trillion — or almost 5% of global gross domestic product — according to the Asian Development Bank. Governments will soon be looking to tap all possible income sources to balance their budgets, including crypto, say tax experts. “At some point, somebody is going to have to pick up the bill” for the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic stimulus packages, Peter Brewin, a PwC tax partner in Hong Kong, told Cointelegraph, adding: “We can …

The United States Internal Revenue Service delayed tax day this year from April 15 to July 15, and perhaps that means many Americans aren’t thinking about taxes during this very strange time. Indeed, they seem understandably focused on the variety of new government programs that comprise part of the CARES Act, enacted to try to boost the slumped economy and put some needed dollars in people’s hands. Related: IRS Delays Tax Day to July 15, Still Monitors Crypto The CARES Act includes provisions for checks for consumers and benefits for businesses, with several types of loans, tax credits and other …

According to top government officials in Japan, the current national tax system is not yet capable of accepting declarations of digital assets, potentially leading to outflows overseas. In a Q&A session at the Financial Statements Committee on April 6, Representative Shun Otokita of the Japan Innovation Party pointed out the importance of market research for the introduction of separate taxes for crypto currencies. Otokita was concerned with the current high-tax system in Japan. He acknowledged that it would be difficult to quickly change the tax code to apply to digital assets, and indicated the necessity of market research to determine …

The Spanish tax authority has begun sending out warning notices to 66,000 cryptocurrency holders to remind them of their tax obligations. According to Europa Press, the Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria (AEAT) began the campaign on April 1, and will keep firing off letters until June 30 in the midst of the national COVID-19 crisis. The 66,000 notices represents a sharp increase from 2019, the first year of the campaign, when a reported 14,700 notices were sent out. The tax watchdog is also targeting those who earn income abroad and from real estate investments. Taxes don’t stop during a pandemic …

A top executive from a prominent Australian taxpayer group has publicly endorsed the world’s biggest cryptocurrency by announcing her first ever Bitcoin purchase. Emilie Dye, director of policy at the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance, or ATA, tweeted on April 1 that she had bought her first Bitcoin: “Today, I made my first Bitcoin purchase. Wahoo!” This triggered excitement in the crypto community, with the tweet amassing about 5,900 likes as of press time. Dye clearly didn’t expect the excitement and later elaborated: “I couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome to the Bitcoin fold. If anything, the number of comments and …

Cryptocurrency portfolio tracker and tax calculator CoinTracker has surpassed 100,000 users and has signed up six new partners. The site, which is used by many traders to comply with tax reporting obligations, announced the news in a blog post published on April 1. In the past month CoinTracker has partnered with six new organizations: Casa, Compound, Crypto.com, ErisX, IDEX, and Lolli, in addition to existing agreements with Coinbase and Turbotax. CoinTracker and Casa have partnered to give users’ access to multisignature security. The Crypto.com partnership will allow users to report cryptocurrency holdings for a number of jurisdictions. ErisX users can …

Crypto communities and the United States Internal Revenue Service haven’t exactly had a love fest over the last five years. It started in 2014, when the IRS said crypto was property, and it hasn’t got much better since. In addition to sending those 10,000 “beware” letters and trying to get crypto exchanges to turn over customer lists, the IRS has even gone so far as to alter the most hallowed tax form, Form 1040, to ask a crypto-specific question. However, the IRS is actually making a big effort to cut all taxpayers — and that includes the crypto community too …

JPMorgan Chase, the first American bank to create and successfully test a digital coin representing a fiat currency, also provided the most fossil fuel financing out of any bank in the world, according to a 2019 report titled “Banking on Climate Change.” The bank recently joined a chorus of other financial institutions and endowments that have declared that they will, going forward, be reluctant to provide funding to the fossil fuel industry — which energizes emerging digital technologies and companies — in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. In a hard-hitting report released to clients on the same …