Cryptocurrency investors in Japan will now have to think about earning an extra bunch of yen in order to pay the taxes imposed by the government. According to Bloomberg, Japanese cryptocurrency investors will have to pay between 15 and 55 percent taxes depending on the amount of money earned.
At the moment, investors who trade stocks and foreign currencies are taxed around 20%. And individuals who earn more than 40 million yen a year ($367,000 dollars) are taxed higher. That is an important amount of money for Japan. For example, South Korean exchanges are taxed 24.2 percent, something similar to the taxes that other corporations pay.
Japan has been one of the friendliest countries towards cryptocurrencies. But the tendency may have changed. Some months ago, the Finance Minister of Japan said that Bitcoin is not a credible currency and that countries should debate possible regulations to the cryptocurrency market.
“There is no fixed definition whether Bitcoin is a currency or not,” he commented. It has not yet been proven to be credible enough to become a currency, so I need to watch for a little while more,” he finished.
Japan has seen its GDP increased last year 0.3% because of cryptocurrency investors that decided to take some profits. In December 2017, Bitcoin reached a new all time high when it touched $20,000 dollars.
The comments of the Japanese Finance Minister are in line what other important central bankers and regulators say. The Dutch Authority on Financial Markets warned Dutch people not to invest in cryptocurrencies due to the high volatility of the market.
2018 will be a year with important regulations coming to the cryptocurrency market. And it has just started.
