Portugal insists on the adoption of taxation of income from cryptocurrency assets

Portugal’s Finance Minister recently introduced to Parliament a draft budget proposal to tax profits from cryptocurrency assets that have been in the possession of investors for less than a year.

It is worth noting that in Portugal, income from cryptocurrency assets, which were gained from professional or commercial activities, has already been taxed. At the same time, individual citizens were exempted from paying these taxes.

As for the new project, according to it, it is planned to charge 28% on capital gains from cryptocurrency assets that are stored for less than a year.  At the same time, income from cryptocurrencies stored for more than a year will remain unchanged.

It should also be highlighted, profits from cryptocurrency issuance and crypto-mining will be taxed by the state.  As a reminder, back in May last year, Finance Minister Fernando Medina stated to Parliament that cryptocurrencies will soon be subject to taxation.

Meanwhile, the draft proposal has not yet undergone any changes. It still needs to go through a full legislative process, and only then become law.

It is also noteworthy that, as a less wealthy Western European country, Portugal has for some time promoted a fairly friendly tax policy. The purpose of this was to encourage foreign investors to inject a steady flow of money into the country’s economy.

Back in 2012, Portugal opened the Golden Visa residency program based on investments to stimulate job creation and the resumption of production within the country’s borders.  It is worth mentioning that the program has been quite effective: the number of foreign residents in Portugal has increased by about 40%.