France: Digital currencies have now become "movable property", reducing taxes from 45 to 19 percent

The French Council of State has changed the tax rate on digital currency sales to a fixed rate of 19 percent, instead of 45 percent as before, local newspaper Le Monde reported on Thursday (April 26th).

The State Council said the tax change comes from a new BTC classification separately from commercial or non-commercial activity:

"The sale of the property" [falls under] the principle of class capital gains of movable property. "

Exceptions to the fixed price are profits from digital currency mining, which will be taxed as non-commercial profits, and income as a result of professional activity, which will be taxed as industrial and commercial profits.

Le Monde said the decision to change the rate of digital currency tax came after citizens appealed to the highest regulatory body in France earlier this year to change regulations on digital currency transactions that have existed since July 2014.

France has been working on digital currency regulation this year. Earlier this year, the Minister of Economy established a digital currency task force to study regulations. In March, the government proposed a ban on investment companies to trade in digital currencies until the regulations were implemented.

Also in March, it was reported that the French Capital Market Regulatory Authority was considering legislation encouraging the development of digital currency initialization (ICO) operations.