It's being reported by several large news organisations that HMRC has today updated their asset declaration forms. Interestingly they have created a whole section for "cryptoassets" while another section groups together "electronic money accounts, online payment platform accounts, electronic wallets, financial technology accounts, community and informal banking accounts, accounts connected to value transfer systems, money service business accounts, foreign exchange accounts and electronic accounts.". They've been quite slow about it, but looks like they have caught up and the second group will cover any new digital tokens in future.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-9524581/Cash-stashed-away-crypto-Bitcoin-heightened-scrutiny-HMRC.htmlhttps://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/regulation/uks-hmrc-seeks-crypto-holding-details-from-taxpayers/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/capital-gains/must-tell-us-bitcoin-hmrc-instructs-taxpayers/I wonder whether this will have the slightest impact on the price of Bitcoin? Does the US government already do something similar? It seems like stripping anonymity away with financial statements like these could remove some of the benefit that lures in cryptocurrency users, but it would also come down to how well they were able to enforce it. Tying people to particular bitcoin wallets would seem much harder than following bank account trails.
