European Court decided to consider Bitcoins as money

On 22 October, the European Court ruled that bitcoin transactions should not be subject to Value Added Tax (VAT). The court decision states that currency transactions are not subject to this tax. Thus, bitcoins in the European Union are officially equated to money, and currency exchange operations with them are equated to transactions with ordinary currencies.

The proposal to exempt cryptocurrency transactions from VAT and recognition of its money with the General Counsel of the European Court of Justice Julianne Kokot [Juliane Kokott] put forward in July this year . For the first time in court, the question of the status of Bitcoins with respect to taxation was raised in the summer of 2014 . Then the Swedish tax service opposed the decision of the Swedish court, according to which operations with Bitcoins in the country were exempt from VAT.

The decision of the supreme judicial body of Europe will put an end to the question of the ownership of Bitcoins and the treatment of them. Before that, different EU countries approached taxation and the essence of bitcoins in their own way. In Germany, bitcoins are equated to property. In Poland, operations with cryptocurrency, including mining, have imposed a VAT of 23%. In Estonia - 20%.
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Julianne Kokot

Not everyone liked this decision. For example, Jens Bader [Jens Bader], the financial director of Secure Trading, a company engaged in intermediation in payments, believes that bitcoins should be considered as a tradable commodity along with gold and silver. He points out that although Bitcoin exchangers have been around for a long time and are working, they do not have licenses for financial activities.

The European Court (European Court of Justice) is the highest court of the European Union Court, whose decisions cannot be appealed. The Court is composed of one judge from each Member State, assisted by eight lawyers general.