Crypto Traders in Japan to Face Investigation due to Tax Avoidance

Jun 06 2019

Japan Tax Authorities are looking forward to take action on the under-reporting of cryptocurrency-based profits. 

One of the local newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported on Wednesday, that most of the cryptocurrency transactions can be tracked in an effort to identify trades which are not being reported for Tax purposes. 

As per the report, around 30 crypto-currency trades and 50 individuals have not stated their revenues obtained from crypto trading as of March, mainly due to the high tax on this type of income. These firms have not declared income worth over 10 million yen ($92.3 million) in the last few years. 

Until now, the Japan-based tax regulators consider revenues obtained from Crypto-related activities to be miscellaneous income, that's why they are taxed up to 55%. As per the current law, local bodies who earn more than 200,000 yen ($1,850) in this kind of income on a yearly basis should expose it, the article states.

As per the report, the investigation team based in the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau requested some of the crypto exchanges to submit the client's transaction data in 2018, enabling the firm to make a list of accounts which made sizeable earnings.

Moreover, the data collected from some of the regional tax offices in Japan proposed to authorities that traders with over 7 billion yen ($9.6 millions) of such income had tried to hide it for tax purposes.

Asahi Shimbun stated tax authorities might file criminal complaints about tax evasion against traders who concealed large income or carried out illicit means to do so.

As per the earlier reports, to reduce tax evasion in the industry, the Japanese Government is forming a latest system which will authorize the National Tax Agency (NTA) to request revenue information from revenue exchanges, along with names and addresses. Anticipated to be released in April 2020, the new law will enable the NTA to request primarily for those users whose earnings from crypto reached more than 10 million yen ($88,700).

Asahi says that the new system will be released in January 2020, and it will authorize the Japanese government to penalize all those exchanges and crypto operators who don't disclose the necessary information.

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