Italy Wants to Tax Speculative Bitcoin Use

New documents suggest Italy’s top tax office is treating bitcoin as a form of currency.
Agenzia della Entrate, Italy’s top tax authority, released new information this month about its treatment of digital currencies, a publication that comes months after an EU court ruling regarding how value-added tax (VAT) would apply to transactions executed using the technology.
According to the Agenzia della Entrate, purchases and sales made with bitcoin remain exempt from VAT – a decision that mirrors a decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last October. However, Italian tax officials, the documents show, are applying income tax to speculative uses of bitcoin, or events in which money is made during a sale or purchase.

This post was published at Coin Desk on September 8, 2016.

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