French Parliament won’t lower taxes for crypto owners

After taking some time for consultations, the French Parliament has rejected the amendments to the 2019 finance bill that would ease cryptocurrency taxation. There are four proposals the Parliament rejected in total.

One of the proposals offered to distinguish regular crypto transactions from the occasional ones, offering to lower tax rates for the latter. Another amendment proposed to increase the amount of crypto transactions that qualify for tax amendment. Its current number is $350, but it was proposed to increase it up to $5,714. Among other proposed amendments was also the lowering of the crypto income rate from 36.2 to 30 percent. All of these proposals are currently in vain and it’s not clear how soon the French Parliament is going to be willing to reconsider.

Notably, in France the scrutiny on crypto lives alongside the embracement of blockchain. For instance, earlier this year, in June of 2017, France’s president Emmanuel Macron said he would like France to be a “startup” nation.” Right after his statement, the country’s Minister for the Economy and Finance, Bruno le Maire, has gone further and stated that France was now ready for a “blockchain revolution.”

Furthermore, earlier this month, the French authorities have proposed to spend around $570 million for blockchain development on state level. Nevertheless, the French Central Bank has declined to endorse a plan that would allow thousands of tobacco kiosks to sell Bitcoin (BTC) in January 2019.