The German Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) has explained that owners of digital assets will be able to sell crypto assets without paying taxes after one year of ownership.
The BMF has released the country’s first guidance for paying income tax on digital currencies and other blockchain-based tokens. The document classifies and explains the technically different aspects of the issue from the point of view of German law.
The sale of purchased cryptocurrencies, such as ether (ETH) or bitcoin (BTC), is tax-free for individuals if the asset has been held for more than a year, the guide says. The new rules also apply to digital assets used in staking or lending protocols. Previously, to avoid tax, the owner of cryptocurrencies had to wait up to ten years.
Parliamentary secretary Katja Hessel said the finance ministry’s work, despite the 24-page document, is not yet finished. The official said that this is only an intermediate result. The crypto industry is evolving at such a pace, Hessel says, that regulators are guaranteed to always have work to do and topics to discuss new rules.
The German government is already working on an additional document that will focus on cooperation between the federal states and their obligations on the regulation of digital currencies, Hessel assured.
In April, Coincub published the results of a study according to which Germany became the most friendly country towards cryptocurrencies in the first quarter of 2022.
