The National Assembly of France refused against the proposal to friendly tax amendments on Cryptocurrency owners. The Finance bill 2019 aimed to lower cryptocurrency taxes by a large margin. News got released in French Monthly Business Magazine Capital on Tuesday, December 18. This means that crypto traders will continue to pay stipulated taxes to the Government.
French Parliament rejected four proposals. Out of those four proposals, one was to differentiate occasional cryptocurrency transactions from the regular crypto transactions, which could result in more lenient taxation policy for the latter. The second amendment proposed an increase in the annual volume of which fall under tax exemption from €305 (around $350) to €3,000 ($3,430), or even €5,000 ($5,714). Taking into account security taxes seems excessive as explained by Parliament. The third amendment which got rejected was the proposal to apply the tax on the sale and purchase of virtual currencies from a bank account instead of taxing them on the exchange platform directly.
In November 2018, it was proposed to reduce income tax on cryptocurrency from 36.2% to 30%, but the status of this amendment is yet not clear. In a recent interview with Alexandre Stachtchenko, head of French blockchain “Chaintech” said that the decision of government did not mean any legal certainty for the crypto traders and investors in France. He also believes that many crypto traders will not prefer to disclose their crypto income under the current set of regulations & legislation.
In June 2017, Emmanuel Macron, President of France stated that France is going to become a “start-up nation.” Then Bruno le Maire Minister for the Economy and Finance explained Macron’s point claiming that country was ready for “blockchain revolution.” To comply Le Maire statement, French political deputies offered €500 million to spend on state-level blockchain deployment over the next three years. But at the same time, the country is also focussed on imposing regulatory actions on the Crypto trading companies to curb the risks.
However, the country’s Central Bank declined to approve the plan that allowed thousands of tobacco kiosks to sell Bitcoin to their clients from January 2019. Therefore, the idea of France towards cryptocurrencies remains ambiguous. Therefore, in 2019 many regulations will come into force in Europe and countries around the world. Some other countries like Malta decided to take favorable actions towards blockchain technologies and virtual currencies. Countries across the globe are planning how to treat better and tax cryptocurrencies. Whereas nation like China decided to ban crypto trading completely within the country.
