Key facts:
If the regulations are approved, the balance and operations with crypto assets must be reported.
The measure is in addition to an April decree that created regulations for companies in the sector.
The Finance Commission of the Spanish Congress of Deputies approved this Tuesday, May 26, 2021, the draft of the Law on the prevention and fight against tax fraud. The measure obliges those who custody third-party cryptocurrencies to inform about the ownership of said possession and the transactions carried out with them, among other modifications in the tax area.
The regulation, which was promoted with 21 votes in favor, 14 against and one abstention, requires reporting the ownership of cryptocurrency balances, as well as collections, payments, assignments and transactions in general. This report must be provided by those who provide custody or custody services, whether individuals or entities, according to the bill. Similarly, this need extends to those who make initial offers of new virtual currencies.
Until now, the legislation demanded this obligation only to those people who owned more than 50,000 euros in cryptocurrencies. Also, at present It is mandatory to declare the profits obtained from the activity in this area when paying income tax, as indicated by the Criptopedia de CriptoNoticias.
In this way, a new regulation is added to those in force in Spain for the management of cryptocurrencies. At the end of April 2021, a Royal Decree-law was promulgated that obliges companies in the sector to be registered and supervised by Spanish authorities, as reported by this medium. This implies that both exchanges and mutual funds and custodians of bitcoin (BTC) must share data about their clients and its possible suspicious activities, which in turn are then shared with other European bodies.
The Law on the prevention and fight against tax fraud had been “stuck” in Congress since October 2020, when it was approved by the Council of Ministers. Now, because the Finance Committee that voted in favor has full legislative powers, it does not need to be discussed in the Lower House, and it will go directly to the Senate.
The parties that voted in favor were the PSOE and United We Can, Citizens, PNV, PDeCAT and the Regionalist Party of Cantabria. On the other hand, those who did not support the motion were the representatives of the PP and Vox, while the ERC abstained.
Other changes proposed by the anti-fraud law
In addition to those mentioned, another measure that the new law would implement is the prohibition of cash payments greater than 1,000 euros (the current limit is 1,500 euros) in the case of professionals and businessmen, while for individuals the ceiling would remain in 2,500 euros, and in 10,000 euros for those with tax domicile outside of Spain. In the framework of cryptocurrencies, this regulation would not have any scope, since Spanish law considers payments in crypto assets as payments in kind.
Likewise, the project in question proposes the prohibition of dual-use software, which is used in companies to manage accounting and will be changed to other systems adjusted to certain traceability and registration criteria; and the expansion of the list of tax debtors, in which all those who owe more than 600,000 euros will enter, unlike the million euros established by the previous regulations.
Finally, the power to carry out surprise inspections in homes by the Treasury without prior notice was removed from the bill, although these may be carried out as long as they are approved by the taxpayer and are justified.
