Indonesia is considering a plan to tax the trading of cryptocurrencies after a surge in popularity among local investors.
Neilmaldrin Noor, a spokesperson for the Indonesian tax office, said the plan was still in the discussion phase. The office is considering taxing income on crypto profits.
Neilmaldrin said:
“It is important to know that… if there is a profit or capital gain generated from a transaction, the profit is an object of income tax. So the taxpayer who receives capital gain has to pay the tax and report it.”
Indonesia considers cryptocurrency as a commodity for trading but has banned its use as a domestic payment instrument.
Indonesia’s crypto taxation plan was first revealed last month when Teguh Kurniawan Harmanda, COO of local crypto exchange Tokocrypto, told CNBC Indonesia that industry players and key authorities Government, including the Trade Ministry’s Futures Exchange Supervisory Board (Bappebti), is discussing how to impose a tax on cryptocurrency transactions.
Harmanda says the proposed income tax rate on crypto returns is 0.05%, which is less than the income tax imposed on stock trading, which is currently 0.1%.
Southeast Asia’s biggest economy bans the use of cryptocurrencies as a payment instrument but allows them to be traded as a commodity. Indodax, a crypto exchange platform that claims to be the largest in Indonesia, said by April the number of active members on its platform hit three million as the price of Bitcoin and other crypto-assets reached record highs. The number of members at Indodax rose from around 2.3 million at the start of the year.
Source: AZCoin News
