- The bill proposes to exempt from taxes operations amounts of up to 50 dollars in Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency.
- Transactions with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies above 50 dollars would continue to pay taxes.
- To date, for the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), all operations with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies must be declared, regardless of the amount.
With the rise in popularity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, legal proposals that seek to regulate this market on a global level also continue to emerge. Recently, United States senators proposed to apply taxes on operations with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, starting with the equivalent of as little as 50 USD.
According to a publication made this Tuesday, July 26, Senators Patrick Toomey and Kyrsten Sinema, from the Republican and Democratic Parties respectively, presented a proposal to the United States Senate so that the trade of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies equal or below 50 USD be tax exempt.
This new project is called the “Virtual Currency Tax Equity Law”, and it seems that it intends to exempt small investors and buyers of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from tax obligations.
If this proposal is approved, Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency transactions equivalent to up to 50 USD would not have to be reported to the authorities, nor would profits up to that amount in trading.
In other words, only transactions with cryptocurrencies of very small amounts would remain tax-free, while those transactions above 50 USD would continue to be subject to tax obligations. Added to this, an average American spends, on average, more than 100 dollars a day.
Senator Toomey, one of the promoters of this legislative project, explained that “although digital currencies have the potential to become an ordinary part of the daily lives of Americans”, the current tax code of the United States is an obstacle to allowing it, CoinDesk reported.
In fact, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States contemplates that, in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency exchanges, losses or gains must be reported, whatever the amount.
According to legislator Toomey, the project that he presented together with Senator Sinema aims to facilitate the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies “as a method of daily payment” among Americans, because it aims to “exempt from taxes small personal transactions such as buying a cup of coffee,” he asserted.
Although the proposal establishes the equivalent of USD 50 as a limit, it is important to note that this amount only represents a little more than 3 hours of work (USD 15 per hour is the minimum wage in the US), so USD 50 is is a very low figure in contrast to what an American who works 40 hours a week earns monthly (at least 2,400 USD).
