China’s Possible Shift Towards Transparency in Crypto- Regulation Divides Bitcoin Community

Chinese lawmakers have delivered long-awaited clarification on foreign tax policy, leading to speculation that further concrete financial statements and possible clarification of its stance on Bitcoin could be imminent.
While China is renowned for not being explicit when it comes to fiscal policy, unexpected comments this week have given industry experts cause to consider whether the mood in Beijing is slowly beginning to favor transparency.
‘Now, [clarity] is finally coming,’ a participant in a training scheme for China’s Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) program told the South China Morning Post.
Hints of changes have hitherto only been released as part of this training session, which governs taxation of foreign investors from 2009 onwards. Previously, ‘foreign investors [had] long been frustrated by Beijing’s reluctance to specify how past trading profits would be taxed, while reserving the right to tax them later,’ the Post reports, but attendees were provided with literature suggesting a firmer decision had been made.
If so, other grey areas could also be addressed, such as digital currency, expectations about which are fuelled by continuing Chinese Bitcoin trading and hardware production activity.

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2015-03-06.