On 16 January 2023, the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets published a draft report recommending, among other things, the introduction of a European tax on crypto assets, whose revenues would flow into the European budget as a new own resource. The Committee acknowledges the rapidly growing global market of crypto assets and that they are increasingly regarded as an investment option and payment method. Moreover, it argues that due to the high mobility and cross-border dimension of crypto assets, taxation at the EU level (rather than the national level) would be more efficient. Options for the proposed taxation include a tax on crypto-asset transactions, on capital gains from crypto-asset activities (based on a uniform tax rate for all EU Member States) and on the trading/mining of crypto assets, which could be determined based on environmental impact and electricity consumption. The draft report will now be discussed in more detail and could ultimately result in a regulation, directive or non-binding recommendation (with the latter two options being much more likely). In Austria, cryptocurrencies were included in the investment income tax regime in March 2022 and since then are essentially taxed in the same way as stocks.
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