The French parliamentary finance committee of the lower house supported the plan to ease the tax burden on operations with cryptocurrencies and adopted an amendment to the draft law on the country's budget for 2019, according to which the income from virtual assets is equal to the income from the capital, Le Figaro reports.
For the amendments to take place, the entire budget must be approved in Senate, the upper house of parliament. The parliament meeting is scheduled for next week, during which the issue will be considered. Now, if the upper house accepts the amendment, then next year, crypto owners in France will pay less for their digital assets. In case of a positive decision from January 1, 2019, the tax for owners of digital assets will decrease from the current 36.2% (fixed tax 19% + social security tax 17.2%) to 30%. In this case, the tax will be fixed.
Lawmakers also promise that the new tax process will be easier for the cryptocurrency owners. At the moment, there are three different modes in France: for one-time transactions, regular transactions and miners. Therefore, if the amendment is adopted, it will be easier for owners to pay a flat tax than to pay separately for each item.
It is worth noting that France is trying to provide businesses with the most favorable conditions. The crypto industry is no exception. At the beginning of the year, President Emmanuel Macron presented The Action Plan for Business Growth and Transformation (PACTE), which in September included the procedure for conducting the initial coin offering (ICO) in the country.
According to the document, to conduct an ICO in France, the company must obtain permission from the French Financial Markets Authority (AMF). AMF token issuers provide the necessary information that will ensure that buyers are aware of the decisions of the Crowdsale organizers. Special attention will be paid to the investor protection criteria. All this is done in order to reduce the risks of losing money, money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
France has been paying attention to cryptocurrency this year and is working on improving in this area. Back in January, the French Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, announced the creation of a working group that will develop mechanisms for regulating cryptocurrencies. One of the main tasks of the working group will be to counter money laundering, tax evasion and the creation of criminal schemes. Therefore, it is obvious that on one hand, the French authorities definitely do not want to hinder the development of digital assets, on the other hand, they want to secure investors and other participants in the crypto market as much as possible.
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