The Spanish tax office has tracked down cryptocurrency holders

Cryptocurrencies are anonymity? Unfortunately, not for Spaniards. The local tax office dealt with the identification of entities that are in possession of cryptocurrencies. The goal is to collect tax receipts for generating revenues using them. Effect? Gather up 15 000 data of cryptocurrency owners.

Non-anonymous cryptocurrencies

As reported by the Spanish daily El Pais, already in the first half of 2018, it sent requests to provide information on cryptocurrency holders to 60 different institutions - mainly banks, companies enabling transactions based on virtual coins, cryptocurrency exchanges and banking operators.

As a result, taxpayers who have or have had cryptocurrencies in their portfolio have been handed over to the local tax office by 15 000. However, the Spanish office does not indicate whether there are only companies or private individuals in this group.

Tax from 19% to 23%

Under the law there is a provision that imposes an obligation to pay 19% tax to 23% for the capital gains achieved due to virtual currency trading. The amount of the tax rate depends on the profit achieved.

However, there is a concern about the manner of enforcing payments from those selected. After identifying the subject, the problem may be coercion to pay tax. First of all, the vast majority of virtual coins operate on their own individual rules and do not pay dividends due to their possession. The second doubt is the calculation of the tax itself due to the dynamically changing valuation of individual cryptocurrencies and differences in quotations on individual crypto-stock exchanges. The scenario in which the Spanish tax office itself accepts the tax paid in a given cryptovalts is doubtful.

All these doubts will probably force Spanish authorities to develop a different, universal solution to cryptocurrencies, which will be more preventive (to limit criminal activities with their use) than the income for the state budget.