Spain’s tax authorities have begun sending warning letters to around 66,000 digital asset investors.
The Spanish tax agency aims to remind cryptocurrency holders of their tax obligations.
The Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria (AEAT) reportedly began its crypto-related tax collection campaign on April 1, 2020. The agency said it would continue to send notices until June 30 of this year, as the country deals with the global Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
The 66,000 virtual currency notices represent a significant increase from last year.
The Spanish tax agency introduced this particular campaign in 2019, when it reportedly sent 14,700 letters to the nation’s cryptocurrency traders and investors. The tax agency aims to identify and target residents who earn income from overseas businesses and also from property investments.
In statements shared with Cointelegraph, Javier Pastor, sales executive at Bit2me, a Spain-headquartered crypto exchange, noted that the nation’s government might be trying to acquire additional funds in order to cover substantial costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pastor confirmed that Spain’s government has not delayed the submission of tax returns or the payment of taxes, because of the Coronavirus crisis. He clarified that the measures won’t impact local cryptocurrency exchanges too much. This, despite much stricter KYC policies and transaction monitoring that are scheduled to be enforced in the near future.
Pastor remarked:
“This does not affect us much in the companies in the industry that have been doing things well I think they [tax watchdog] are only scaring the novice user by applying such measures, plus I don’t think they are going to collect much tax revenue from the cryptocurrency sector because they are not even regulated in our country.”
Spain’s tax agency has started focusing on cryptocurrency-related transactions during the past few years.
The tax authority sent notices to 60 local digital asset firms during 2018, which included companies that accepted cryptocurrencies as payment for goods and services. The notices requested firms to provide details regarding the owners of the accounts dealing in cryptos, and the frequency of digital currency transactions.
Local digital asset exchanges were requested to provide the identity of the cryptocurrency investors and the value of transactions performed.
