If you converted bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies into euros in 2021, you must declare your gain or loss to the tax authorities. However, there is a solution, well known to experienced investors, to avoid or delay the tax in complete legality.
Since 2019, gains received on the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, ether or dogecoin are taxable. Unless the total amount of your capital gains does not exceed 305 euros per year, in which case they are tax exempt. Beyond this ceiling, your winnings will be systematically subject to the single flat-rate deduction (PFU) of 30%. Or 12.8% tax and 17.2% social security contributions.
However, the situation should change next year. Article 79 of the finance law for 2022 provides that from January 1, 2023, investors will be able to choose between the PFU and the progressive tax scale when declaring their capital gains.
Good news for non-taxable taxpayers, or imposs 11%, since they will then only pay more than 17.2% social contributions, or 28.2% taxes and social contributions, instead of the 30% PFU. Taxpayers whose income is taxed at 30 or 45%, on the other hand, will have every interest in keeping the PFU.
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A tedious statement
While for their bank book, their life insurance, their PEA and other current savings products, investors can rely on the annual statement of earnings issued by their financial intermediaries, they are left to declare their taxes themselves. income from trading digital assets.
And the task proves tedious, especially for those who are active crypto-investors, and regularly make arbitrages according to the current fluctuations in valuation. Because, in addition to declaring the total amount of their earnings over a calendar year, they must also list on a specific document all the crypto-euro conversions they have made and the recipe corresponding to each of these operations.
On the other hand, if they remain in the world of cryptocurrencies and sell their ethers to buy bitcoin, for example, crypto-investors do not have to declare it to the tax authorities and they are not taxed on these crypto crypto transactions. Today, what is taxed in France is the capital gain when you resell in eurosfor example on a bank or payment account, explained MoneyVox Claire Balva, co-founder of Blockchain Partner, a consulting firm specializing in cryptocurrencies.
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Cryptocurrencies pegged to the dollar and the euro
However, there is a solution to protect your earnings from the high volatility inherent in cryptocurrencies without exposing yourself to the shackles of tax regulations: stablecoins. These are also cryptocurrencies, but which have the particularity of being indexed to a traditional currency, such as the dollar or more rarely the euro. Their stability is made possible thanks to a guarantee mechanism, such as sanctuarizing in a bank account the exact quantity of money necessary for the conversion of all stablecoins.
When you stay in the blockchain via for example a stablecoin, you are not taxed. That is why investors prefer to change their bitcoins or ether to dai or usdt [stablecoins dollar, ndlr] rather than in euros. This is a known mechanism in the world of cryptos, explains Claire Balva. If this technique is legal, does the Minister of Public Accounts see it with a good eye? Asked about the possibility of delaying the tax in this way, he has not responded to our request to date.
In France, the market for stablecoins in euros is still small. In March 2021, a promising announcement came from the start-up Lugh, of which Casino is a shareholder, which launched its stablecoin in euros (1 lugh = 1 euro). It is currently accessible to individuals and companies investing via the broker Coinhouse. Since its launch on March 18, 6million lughs were created. Today 40% of transactions at Coinhouse are made with lugh, explained to us Olivier Ou Ramdane, co-founder of Lugh, at the time of the launch. For comparison, it has changed over the last 24 hours for almost 62 billion euros of usdt.
Coinhouse, on the other hand, derives a specific advantage from offering the lugh on its platform. This allows it to store, via this ersatz euro, the savings of its customers. Because, not having a banking license, this crypto broker is not authorized to keep their euros directly.
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