Manoj A.A good news for cryptocurrency investors in Australia. The country’s parliament passed a new legislation that put an end to the double taxation of cryptocurrency. Now buyers will no longer have to pay goods and services tax for purchasing cryptocurrencies.
The double taxation was a result of a law passed back in 2014. According to that law cryptocurrencies were considered as bartered goods and as such a purchaser would have to pay tax while buying cryptocurrency and then again when they buy anything is subject to GST (The Goods and Services Tax).
That law faced immense opposition especially from technology advocates and last year many government officials accepted that this law is not justified. Now finally the law has been done away with.
A review was proposed in August this year by The Australian Senate Economics References Committee and the Treasury department attempted to resolve the issue by setting out a law back in May during the budget session.
So, thanks to the new legislation, effective from July 1st 2018, cryptocurrencies will be taxable at par with other foreign currencies. This can be considered as a landmark decision as the whole world is struggling to come up with suitable taxation models for assets driven by blockchain technology.
Photo Credit: Australian Parliament Photograph by Long Zheng.
Damodar Kalyan
Mohith Agadi
This is indeed a great news for Australians and also the Bitcoin network as it receive legitimacy in form of legislation by a country supporting it and considering it as foreign currency for tax purposes.