A national firm of accountants says HMRC is stepping up investigations relating to cryptoassets. If you own Bitcoin assets, should you be worried?
Crypto statistics
According to government statistics, in 2022 nearly five million people owned cryptoassets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. This statistic prompted HMRC to start a campaign in late 2023 to track down those who had bought and sold cryptoassets. It’s now following this up with investigations into the tax affairs of those it believes may owe tax on transactions made in 2022/23 or earlier years.
Enquiry notice
When HMRC starts an enquiry you’ll receive a letter (notice) stating the legislation it’s using as authority. The enquiry letters relating to cryptoassets then ask for records of your cryptocurrency transactions for one or more tax years. Tip. HMRC is asking for the information and documents to be provided within 30 days. If you don’t expect to be able to comply you should contact HMRC without delay and ask for more time. It’s usually happy to agree to this.
A case to answer?
Buying and owning cryptoassets does not itself cause you to be liable to tax, even where their value has grown substantially. HMRC is only interested where you have received income or made gains by selling the assets. Even then it won’t necessarily mean you have tax to pay.
Tax on gains
If you have bought and sold cryptoassets infrequently, any gains (after knocking off any losses) you have made fall within the scope of capital gains tax (CGT). However, if your gains for a tax year from the sale of all assets – not just the cryptoassets – were less than the CGT annual exemption (£12,300 for 2022/23) there’s no tax to pay and possibly no requirement to have reported the transactions, so you can breathe easy even if you receive an HMRC enquiry notice (see The next step ). Trap. If you frequently trade in cryptoassets HMRC might consider that you’re liable to income tax on any gains (net of losses) you make. The CGT exemption won’t apply and if you haven’t declared your gains you might have tax to pay.
Usually, you only need be concerned if you have bought and sold cryptoassets and made a gain that exceeds the capital gains tax exemption (£12,300 for 2022/23). You should nevertheless engage with HMRC’s investigation.
The next step
HMRC’s factsheet on cryptoassets
This article has been reproduced by kind permission of Indicator – FL Memo Ltd. For details of their tax-saving products please visit www.indicator-flm.co.uk or call 01233 653500.