Virtual Currency Tax Evasion May Need a Multilateral Fix

Cryptovaluta is een trend die de aandacht heeft van de Belastingdienst/FIOD en OM. Het gaat hier om fsicale en strafrechtzaken. Lees voor verschillende visies van o.a. Europol en onze strafrechtadvocaat Kim Helwegen het artikel Virtual Currency Tax Evasion May Need a Multilateral Fix, gepubliceerd in Bloomberg International Tax Monitor.

…. “We at Europol have identified an increase in the use of virtual currencies for money laundering activities. No longer an exclusive tool for cybercriminals, drug trafficking cartels
are taking advantage of the possibilities,” he said in an email.
The focus from top law enforcement officials within the EU comes as many countries are trying to find their own solutions to virtual currency tax evasion. Germany, Japan,
Australia, and South Korea are among the countries grappling with how to tax virtual currency.

Global Solution Needed

The draft version of the EU anti-money laundering directive calls for virtual currency ledger-holders in EU member nations to register with EU authorities. But a money launderer
in London using a ledger—a record of all the transactions in a virtual currency—or cryptocurrency based in Singapore could escape the scope of the directive, because it doesn’t
apply to non-EU jurisdictions, said Andrew Beckett, managing director at the consulting firm Kroll in London.

To EU regulators, these virtual currency transactions between London and Singapore would simply look like encrypted traffic “going in and out” and not raise any red flags, he
said.

“You can take cryptocurrencies anywhere in the world. Only blocking it in the EU isn’t going to stop the problem,” he said. “The very international nature of this means that a
solution falls apart if it is not global.”

Kim Helwegen, attorney at Jaeger Advocaten in Amsterdam, similarly noted that a country like the Netherlands shouldn’t go it alone, but she leaned toward a different solution
to curb cryptocurrency-based tax evasion and money laundering. Countries around the world should develop an open-source verification system that virtual currency exchanges
can use to check the origin of cryptocurrencies, she said.

“International rules will have to be developed because this is the future,” she said.

More Questions

Helwegen also said taxpayers who wish to duly report income earned from virtual currencies in their tax returns also are confronted with many “qualification questions”
stemming from the nature of virtual currencies.

“There are not enough instructions and there is too much gray area,” she said, pointing out that it isn’t clear how the Dutch tax administration considers activities such as
mining, or processing transactions in a virtual currency, and hard forks, a process that creates new coins from existing coins.

Lawmakers should embrace virtual currency and the Dutch tax administration should offer guidance to answer questions, she said.

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