Bitcoin Forum

On September 2, Agenzia delle Entrate, the major Italian tax authority, published a new document titled “Bitcoin and digital currencies buying and selling: clarification on the tax treatment” about the fiscal treatment of Bitcoin and how VAT would be applied to digital currency transactions.

The document states:


Source : https://cointelegraph.com/news/italy-wants-to-treat-bitcoin-as-currency-and-tax-it

I'm not sure If it's something to be happy or sad about ? (treating bitcoin as a real currency and in the same time .. TAX IT) but well I guess that by the end of the day , Bitcoin won't go mainstream unless it is taxable.

Well what do you expect? Nothing can escape the government's hand in taxing anything. To be honest with everyone, I do not want bitcoin to become mainstream. Experimentation and pushing the technology forward should be the top priority, not making money. So a bitcoin that is not defined by any government entity and free to become what it is meant to be is more valuable to me than BTC going "to the moon".

And a new question, does the italy is already having the system for taxing bitcoin? whether if that is possible for to do that? because too many people with a lot of address and i think that will becoming a hard working for italy if they are really for giving a tax for bitcoin in their country.
and italy already see if bitcoin is can be a farm field for them. and especially if they are not making research about bitcoin and just make a bad statement like this.

it's simple,just taxing the merchant that accepting bitcoin payment,then the merchant will automatically charging it from the buyers whether increasing the price of the stuff or whatever it doesn't matter, so indirectly taxing the buyers,but i'd say that taxing directly to someone that using bitcoin is nearly impossible or need to put a lot of effort in it

it's nothing new really. here in the netherlands i have to pay tax over bitcoin for quite some time now. it doesn't mean i am also doing it since i don't declare my coins and profits made through bitcoin, but officially it should be done.

The governments can do nothing about your bitcoins unless you convert them to cash, or unless you acquire them in exchanges which require your personal data.

What can the state do about some guy working for BTC? Nothing, the state will never know that this guy owns X BTC. Of course to buy a car or real state, you will need to tax it since the government will find out you own unreported car and real state.

Unless bitcoin were not exchanged using legal local exchange platform there is noway for government to track how much bitcoin you hold. So basically if you remain anonymous and don't expose how much bitcoin you hold and how much you have earned over trading etc than nothing to worry about. In here i think government even don't know bitcoin is in existence like most of the government of developing countries do.

I think government will face some problem regarding those taxes but yes bitcoin is a currency and yes there should be taxes on it......

wow. This is very good news. with this, bitcoin is directly accepted by the government italy. This is a positive development.
some of the most important part is the recognition of bitcoin in the financial system in a country.

They do recognize it but don't actually wanna implement because of its anonymity >:(

Its okay to treat bitcoin as currency but they will add tax on it? Thats bad idea because we pay in any transaction+ tax so there are many fee, many bitcoin user in italy will be angry to this i think. But How they input tax on it? By registering their names that they using it in their governement? Lol many wouldnt register i think.

Its effect will be good to the market of italy and for the bitcoin especially it will contribute a big factor on the price of bitcoins. But i am thinking what about the users of it on italy if it will finally use on their country .the anonimity of bitcoin will be worthless also they will have tax on bitcoin although it has a good and bad effect on both for them and for us .

Not reassuring news for the Italians on the forum at all.  :-[

I think it is mostly a good thing rather than be a bad thing. because businesses are already paying taxes for their business regardless of anything else. and they will always be resisting accepting bitcoin for as long as it is not a legal regulated currency because they will be scared. so for them the only difference would be that they can accept bitcoin with an ease of mind.

If you buy goods from a legitimate company, they should already be applying VAT, or they would have big problems.

If you're doing business without creating a company, whether using BTC or fiat, you can also have problems.

So the miner fee is not enough, they think they still need to tax it? Well, I think this is a very bad idea for Bitcoin because it won't be decentralized anymore if they do it.
How would they do it anyway? How can the government know that the transaction is made by an Italian?

Bitcoin taxation is inevitable if we think about going mainstream. Unless we want bitcoin to remain a technical curiosity used by geeks then we should focus on mainstream.
Crying about bitcoin taxes won't help it - what we need to do is to make sure that bitcoin legislation will be honest, serious, and not skewed and biased against bitcoin itself.

Of course no one can tax bitcoin network - instead every 3rd party company like exchanges, payment processors, vendors will be taxed.

It will be mean that Italy will approve bitcoin for their government and I think it is much better as with that bitcoin will also get a full support from the governments and the price will increase more higher.

absolutely right, we will see that bitcoin is trusted by government field. the government would guarantee bitcoin and then bitcoin will be developed in the community italy.

Its a good sign of stable and decentralized economy. Already Russia also announced as Bitcoin is a payment method for Russian user.

This is just beginning. All developed countries are trying to get into blockchain technology for better governance and administration.

The whole concept of taxing bitcoin is where I get my knickers in a twist. For me bitcoin is about creating a field outside of the government,where I can make money and not be hit over the head with taxes or scrutinized come tax time for every odd number in the forms.
Seems like the Countries pushing forward all want to get their piece of the pie and has nothing to do with keeping bitcoin rolling towards mass adoption.
With any movement I will cross my fingers I am being that glass half empty kind of guy to often.

how are they going to tax bitcoin ? someone may have bitcoin and never tell anyone about his address. I really wonder how they can control or monitor bitcoin transactions so they can tax it ?

Any legalization is good for bitcoin, more people will trust in blockchain after few modern states accept it officially. About taxing I`m not sure what to say, that will not be so easy I think. They will try to tax shops and then shops will make prices higher cause of that. I don`t see other way for them to tax bitcoin.
If bitcoin users are anonymous, how they will find someone who is using VPN or TOR, or something else? That person can hide his work on internet, how will government find such person? And can they check everyone? To many unanswered questions about all this taxing.

If Bitcoin are not taxed, people would use it as a loophole to avoid paying taxes. This will then result in a banning or over regulation from

the governments. If you tax it from the start, you will avoid conflict in the future with the tax authorities. Pay VAT on your transactions and

pay Capital Gains on your profits, and you will be left alone.  ;)

I find that an interesting idea. I am still wondering how they could tax a currency whose one of the best features is the high anonymity that it provides to the owners.

Italy wants to treat bitcoin and tax it if they want it ,i think this can be good for bitcoin and it is mean   government of italy  will except bitcoin and they will allow to use it for every area in the future but there is a problem  users of bitcoin dont want to share thier identity  and how can  government of italy will handle it , i wonder too?

Even if government tax is the cost we have to pay to make bitcoin mainstream,I dont see any harm.Once bitcoin goes mainstream,its value will rise too high and almost all of us would become rich.Paying taxes when you have fortunes is not bad

How will the government "guarantee bitcoin"?   

The idea that every one is willing to give up privacy for more global appeal is the fine line that divides those for profit and those that are hoping to change the system. Lets not presume that every one is wanting to hand all their details over to make some economic gains.

Taxing the system is a half cooked idea and if they do have a way to track then it is a bad spot for all the internet as well. It would mean that they can track all movement and not just bitcoin.

very stupid move by Italy government.How can they tax a money?They may apply income tax when bitcoin is converted to fiat

Yep,

Finland you have to be own company a burden  :-X

It is still debatable whether cryptocurrency can be called a currency or a commodity,different country will take different stand on this,i thing it is high time to take a decision as these virtual currencies made millonaires all over the world and the government want to tax them. This is how economy works,if someone makes money somehow the government will find a way to tax it.

I have dream to invest example XMR or ETH mining power so i can make 24/7 money + low payed job(?) Money is solution many and many problems :-X

Everything cost something, even funeral is not free and placing your grave and doom stone is what your social class and status on that moment.  :-X

Well that would be amazing news. Oficially recognized but country. Regulated in positive way, well lets hope its real deal.

If people are smart then there will be plenty of ways around this and in the future we should be able to achieve anonymity  ;)

Government of my country wanted to tax all online currencies : Paypal, Webmoney, Payza and others, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. If follow them offer, we would to pay taxes for gambling or sports betting money. This is ridiculous. Good that this offer are rejected.

Well the Italy just wanna collect more fees and they are see digital currencies are mooving a great volume of coins soo they will or wanna tax them, they will know who has bitcoins because the banks, each deposit make at exchanges will be a proof for them, with this maybe the local trades may happen more to avoid the control of the governement.

this is only good news. whenever a country legally announces (or planning to announce) bitcoin as a legal currency, it means more businesses and merchants can start accepting bitcoin as payment easily. and that will help the mass adoption a lot.

This decision will have its pros and cons both. The good thing is that the bitcoin will be hugely popular and many people will start exploring its possibilities. Which will help to spread the awareness about bitcoin and will help in price increase.

However, on the other hand if the government start taxing it, then the anonymity will be gone and people will have to hand over their fortune to the government. But I guess, adapting bitcoin as a currency in a country like Italy, will help bitcoin in long run. 

Oh crap. It is starting. They are seeing the money that they can get from it. This is what I am scared of.  Then other countries will start questioning "why dont we do that too?"
I dont think this is a good thing. Government dont think good first. It is the money which is the priority.

Because they are know all of your listed is already contain a lot of money, and so greedy... but otherwise in my region, but considering from the op will be a bad news maybe the another country will following them too.

I'm not sure what to think of that news.
If a company  holds bitcoins at the end of the year, they have to pay taxes on them.
Do they have to pay taxes at the end of the year if they hold dollars or pounds as well? Somebody knows that?

i think it is mostly a happy news.
nobody likes paying taxes and if the laws are not to strict and harmful to the businesses i don't think they would be so unhappy about it either.
although i have seen before that in US some of the businesses had to move headquarters out of there and move to other states because of the regulations.

but i think eventually everywhere will become the same with regulation laws and bitcoin will become legal currency in the near future which can help adoption a lot.

Get this guys:


Which mean the Government will take a some money from you whatever you do. It's how the world work.  ;) 
Charging tax by the government seems good for bitcoin as I feel that they have recognized bitcoin and has accepted it as a commodity rather than currency.

Well i don't want to see Bitcoin as Currency.

That’s exactly what I want to happen with bitcoin. Yes, I get profits out of it but more than that I am influenced by this amazing revolutionary technology and I want it to be used by everyone and having monetary value is part of it but we shouldn’t treat it like a money machine. Sadly most of the users focus on money part rather than technology aspect.

If someone asked me what will I choose from ‘1 billion bitcoin users with $1,000 bitcoin price’ or ’$10,000 bitcoin price with 1 million bitcoin users’ then I would choose first option without a second thought.

Did you even think that any government will miss out on the opportunity to cash in on a multi Billion dollar technology, where they can leech some extra tax income? Bitcoin represents a new source of income for them, and they will zone in to it's potential.

This is not entirely bad for Bitcoin users, because merchants and businesses rendering services needs to operate within clear legal frameworks. If Bitcoin was not clearly defined as a currency, nobody would want to touch it. The only way they will touch it, is when they work through payment processors, where Bitcoin gets converted to fiat currencies.

Now, these companies can deal directly with consumers and third party payment processors can be bypassed. This eliminate extra fees, which makes Bitcoin transactions cheaper. ^smile^

They will taxed exchanger or people in that site, most exchanger right now use kyc for verification purpose so it's really simple for government to trace who are behind that address, according to the article for the individual user, they will not taxable when the total stock of all the foreign currency deposited in their accounts is less than 51.645,69 euro for at least 7 days but if greater than that they become taxable.

Just look on the bright side of it.  If they will legalize it then many will benefit from it.  Taxing means it is acknowledge by the government.  And would you not be proud that bitcoin will help your country through tax?  Anyways, even if they will tax it, hope that it would be little.  I think if it happens then bitcoin price will boost and many will demand it.  Many will use it so other part of the world may adopt also the concept of treating bitcoin as currency.

Since bitcoin is becoming popular and they can see that many are benefiting from it having minuscule charges so the government will really find a way to benefit also from it. It's advantageous for bitcoin users having no tax yet to its transactions and if this would push through then many may want to shift back to fiat if the government will implement it. But it may be hard for the government to trace every transaction of the users because it has many addresses and its hard to track also the user because of its anonymity.

yes i shared with your opinion putting it to a taxation might help our country to benefits from it and it will be more popular to many possible investors too, the only thing that scared me regarding to this is also the possibilities for the government to try to control it from our country i know bitcoin can't be centralized but government always wants control, lets see if what will happen after most of the countries will do the same thing.

Well, on one hand, it is good for bitcoin, because it is actually considered as a currency by the government. However, what about its anonymity? Government may take control under it. And I thought it was a good thing that there were no taxes when we used bitcoin (except this 20 000 satoshi fee to send money)... Is it going to influence the price?

There are alwas ways to circumvent that.
For instance you can buy bitcoins via localbitcoins, mycelium or any other local marketplace as you have already stated.
Furthermore the first types of decentralized exchanges are out there and it will be more in the future.
So avoid buying via banks, Coinbase, Circle and all other AML/KYC services are you should be fine.

Ok explain to me how they wanna take control of a decentralized network?
They can't!!!
Avoid services where AML/KYC is required.Simple is that.
Furthermore Italy is not the first country taking taxes from Bitcoin users. Look at Australia for instance.

So u work for the US government and dont want any other government to control it now like the CIA does, nice work

whether government takes any taxes or not, you are not anonymous when doing a purchase with bitcoin. you are not exactly anonymous when using bitcoin either read more about it here: www.bitcoinisnotanonymous.com

If bitcoin is going to be taxed, how are people going to keep their anonymity? Isn't it going against what bitcoin was made for? The governments are going to do what they can to get a slice of whatever we own. That's how "creative" they are in finding ways to generate income. SMH.

Im not into anonymity of bitcoin but i agree with you something sender would not have a personal thing! But the problem is with the tax . ! Im using bitcoin because it has no tax at all and now thhey gonna put tax on it :( it is very disappointing to government and the bitcoin user will be sad if they withdraw :(

"Italy Wants to Treat Bitcoin as Currency" Cool! Way to go Italy!

"and tax it" OH HELL NO

The won't have to take over bitcoin network, they will tax every bitcoin purchase done. Legally registered companies, shops, services have to keep their logs.
So taxing them or buyers won't be hard.

Staying away from AML/KYC services is not as simple in current situation. It is basically question: to use my BTC or be scared of KYC and don't use it.

Bitcoin is 100% decentralized, there's no way anyone would be able to put a tax in it. But for the sake of discussion, let's just suppose that Italy successfully have put tax in every Bitcoin user in their country. Since you're already here on the Internet, might as well find a way to hide your identity, right? It's not that hard to look for a modded elite version of Hotspot shield or maybe even buy it if you want to.

I think that's actually good for bitcoin that it is being labelled as a currency. Maybe many employers will also give this option to their employees to be paid in bitcoin as well, itf it is taxable like this. If demand for bitcoin comes high then it's a win-win all round.

yes i am agree with you,, but if they have some special system through which they can impost tax on bitcoin users and can easily collect this tax then it is a good news even for bitcoin because Italy  will first legalize bitcoin in their country and then they will impose tax on it.

It totally defeats the purpose why bitcoin is made. For us to stay away from taxes and high transaction fees. It's a good thing that bitcoin will be in the mainstream of currencies but if they'll gonna put taxes same as FIATs thats not a very good sign.

That is not a good thing for the people that make use of Bitcoin and life in Italy because now they have to give away a percentage from every earning that they get.
I hope that this is not going to happen in every country in the future.

Tax , this is the enemy of bitcoin and other crypto currency. It will never be the same  if taxed. Transaction fee will be higher anf it will affect to any transaction, onlne comodity btc price etc. It is also another way of controlling the currency in my opinion. On the positive side, when it becomes legal tender then you can demand if any transaction is fraudulent.

I`m not surprised.Bitcoin IS a currency and should be taxed.

This is the way to adopt and legalize bitcoin,i guess.

I know that most of the bitcoin users don`t want to pay taxes and want to stay underground,but

we have to pay our taxes. :(

there's nothing to do with the transaction fees,the transaction fees will remain the same (fees/kb) and there will be no additional fees because italy can't tax it directly to the transaction they don't have control over it,the only way is through merchant

Yeah I am agree with you, tax bitcoin would be hard. So many people in the world do transaction with bitcoin in anonymously( one of the thing that i like in btcoin world ). No tax in bitcoin is bitcoin superiority. No goverment can rule bitcoin and the users.
That Is my oppinion.

I don't think how the government of Italy is going to tax bitcoin as it is decentralized and per transaction that you are going to do with does have charge for its confirmation. But if this is going to happen in Italy then it is another success for bitcoin and this is going to add up again in the economy of bitcoin.

I think its a bad news, when government meddle up in bitcoin, the anonymity that we had will disappear and soon the government will be able to see our bitcoin transaction, but we as a citizen cant do anything about it, so we just can accept and obey the law

Then Italy will demand that exchanges in the country charge tax in addition to trading fees. That's the only way it can make money from crypto.

Decentralization of the bitcoin network has little to do with taxes. Network itself can't be taxed now and probably never will be, because there is no way to technically enforce it.

If we wish for bitcoin to become real alternative currency used on par with FIAT, we unfortunately (because who wants to pay more taxes, really?) need to comply to some sort of tax law.

I agree on this.  government cant directly implement tax on bitcoin but they can implement taxes on merchants.  The item that were sold or if use at salary.  This is where the government can implement taxes.  Tx fee and other internal system of bitcoin will be untouched in my opinion.  And we as bitcoin enthusiast should be glad that one country already acknowledged BTC as currency.

Thats a great news. So it means Bitcoin is accepted as a currency by the government. So it cant be declared as illegal there. I hope governments of all nations will follow this process. It shows Bitcoin can no more be avoided in the world.

Well, this is bad news for people who earn Bitcoin living in Italy, because one of the advantages Bitcoin was exactly what people do not pay taxes for it.

Any aspect coming from a government arm always has me a little edgy and with the current landscape of Italy,it would make me lean more towards damaging than good. This being a pass on taxes,I am kind of shocked.
 Seems to be a financial and government problem presenting themselves as of late.
Italy really should not be even looking at bitcoin with the mess they have,but I can never really get a good gauge of European Countries and how they go about business.
Banking regulations seem to be more pressing of a issue for them.

As if paying service fees for exchanges is just not enough.Their primary target will be exchanges and wallet services.Centralize all the wallet services with bunch of rules and destroy the markets for p2p exchanges.Bring in new laws to control the free resources.

They're threating bitcoin as a real currency to tax it.Nothing good about it.I'd rather use bitcoins for self purposes than buying a pack of cigarettes off a kebab shop in real life.

What I currently seeing right now is that if Italy added taxes to bitcoin which bitcoin already do has fees then it would really be a great pain on the pockets of the bitcoin users from Italy. We are already having a hard time  to deal on our taxes how much more if it has added fees?