Two young braggarts who took to the Norwegian media to boast about millions in crypto profits last year are backpedalling now after media showed they disclosed minimal gains on their 2017 tax returns, Dagens Naeringsliv reports.
Crypto-mining partners Philip Eriksen and Roy Arne Olsen, both 22, allegedly reported zero kroner in wealth on their 2017 tax returns and paid 29 000 and 45 000 Norwegian kroner in taxes respectively, the equivalent of roughly $3415 and $5300 USD.
But at the height of the crypto bull market in 2017, Roy Arne Olsen told the Harstad Tidende news outlet that, “Having an unrealized million wealth in crypto currency after two years is a fantastic feeling.”
For his part, Erickson told Norwegian media around Christmas that he’d amassed around 34 bitcoins from the pairs’ barn-based crypto mining operation.
If sold at the time, 34 bitcoins could have fetched about $648 000.
Erickson subsequently told Itromso he had, “pretty much more than that,” but declined to specify.
But since publication of the pairs’ tax declarations, Erickson has withdrawn all quotes and has declined to further comment on the matter.
Olson has also declined to comment except to state that he has left the business of crypto mining entirely.
A spokesperson for the Norwegian tax directorate, Astrid M. Dugstad Tveter, told Dagens Naeringsliv, “A challenge with crypto currency is that the Tax Administration does not get this automatically reported by a third party, as with other types of basic data. The experience is that (reports are) often made incorrectly, both deliberately and subconsciously…”
Improper declarations of taxable income in Norway, “May result in additional taxes,” says Dagens Naeringsliv, and the Norwegian tax authority is always open to hearing revised information.