Taxation on Bitcoin eliminated in Japan, what now?

Up until July 1st of 2017, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin did not fall under the category of exempt sales under the Japanese Consumption Tax (“JCT”). As a result, the sale of cryptocurrencies in Japan have been treated as taxable for JCT purposes. Subsequently to July 1st following the enactment of the amended Fund Settlement Law in May 2016, the sale of virtual currency as defined under the new Fund Settlement Law will be exempt from JCT.

With the taxation on bitcoin eliminated in Japan, will all the other countries follow their lead?

Already, applications such as "NODE40 Balance" now exist to help aid the IRS in collecting a tax report of every single American.

The service aims to set an industry standard by calculating net gains and losses for every single transaction made throughout the calendar year, and rolling it all into the IRS approved Form 8949 with attachable worksheets for the user; Node40 claims this is “an industry breakthrough” given the First In First Out (FIFO) method currently used by competitors often causes gross misreporting.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain was suppose to help bring us a sense of anonymity into our lives away from the government. Let's all hope every country and government out there will soon eventually come to an agreement that taxes should not be associated with cryptocurrencies.

Source:

1. https://cointelegraph.com/news/its-official-japan-has-eliminated-tax-on-bitcoin-rise-in-trading-expected
2. https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-congress-seeks-irs-help-on-regulating-taxes-of-cryptocurrencies
3. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/jp/Documents/tax/bt/jp-bt-japan-inbound-tax-alert-dec-2016-no19.pdf
4. https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2017/03/22/blockchain-infrastructure-service-node40-launches-cryptocurrency-tax-software/