BIZ BUZZ: Salceda pushes crypto tax
Heads up, cryptocurrency service providers, the taxman may come for you soon.
This as Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda has filed a House resolution directing the House committee on ways and means to conduct hearings on the possible taxation of crypto service providers who may be registered abroad but can be subject to local tax as nonresident digital service providers.
Salceda noted that there are as many as 1,600 platforms for the exchange of virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies that are fully accessible to Filipinos online, with only a handful willing to submit to local laws.
These, however, can be charged a value added tax (VAT) as provided under the VAT on Nonresident Digital Service Providers law that is expected to be enacted soon.
Hearings by the ways and means committee are deemed timely considering that some 10.9 million Filipinos already own cryptocurrency, with an estimated $641.5 million or P35 billion in assets.
Plus, the growth in the cryptocurrency trading sector was “inevitable.”
And with growth comes extra scrutiny by a government that needs to collect as much revenues as possible.
