Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato has finally addressed a bitcoin tax issue the Japanese have been worried about for months now: the absurd possibility of 110% taxes on bitcoin and other digital assets. Kato noted at a budget committee meeting that this situation is indeed possible under the current law and is “not limited to crypto assets.”
It’s hard to fathom how anyone could keep a straight face while talking about taxing people into the realm of negatives on income, but Japan’s finance minister Katsunobu Kato has risen to the shameless occasion, ostensibly for the first time publicly.
Finance Minister Kato explains unbelievable 110% crypto tax
At a House of Representatives Budget Committee Meeting on Feb. 28 (which also saw PM Shigeru Ishiba in attendance), Finance Minister Kato fielded a question supporters of Japan’s Democratic Party for the People (DPP) have been asking for a long time: Is it really possible that someone might be taxed at 110% on crypto?
As Cryptopolitan has reported previously, it is indeed possible when inheritance tax comes into play, and now the finance minister has verified said possibility on the record.
Kato noted at the meeting (translated from Japanese): “It is a possibility.” He elaborated: “Paying this income tax and inheritance tax will result in a negative impact. However, this is limited to cases where the selling price is extremely high [compared to the acquisition price].” In other words, you’d have to make a lot of money on crypto to enter the highest tax bracket where the 110% rate would apply.
Kato went on to give scenarios where the 110% tax might occur, noting that crypto assets often skyrocket in value, and most of the money paid is due to said gains. “For example, cryptocurrency acquired for 1 billion yen has become 6.5 billion yen or more, or cryptocurrency acquired for 20 million yen has increased in value 100 times and become 2 billion yen,” he explained.
However, the politician did not say why the already tax-strangled Japanese populace should be punished for investing wisely, or why the government should be allowed to take anyone’s inheritance at all, and ended by simply saying: “This is not limited to crypto assets.”
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