European Parliament Debates European Crypto Tax. Without new revenue for the EU, “Portugal is one of the most penalized”

European Parliament lawmakers have come forward with proposals to diversify the European Union (EU) funding sources that include taxes on crypto assets. The report has as one of the rapporteurs the Portuguese MEP José Manuel Fernandes, who argues to the ECO that “if we do not have new revenues for the EU Budget, Portugal is one of the most penalized countries”.

In this proposal by the MEPs, which will still have to be discussed in the European Parliament, several suggestions are put forward for new ways of financing the EU. One of them is the “introduction of a European tax on crypto assets, whose revenues would flow into the European budget as a new own resource”.

This idea arises taking into account that the global crypto market has been growing rapidly, and they are “progressively considered as a true means of payment and part of investment strategies”.

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José Manuel Fernandes argues that taxation is difficult in each Member State, so “it works better on an EU scale: there is greater efficiency”. This does not mean, however, that the revenue will all come to the EU budget, the MEP points out, pointing out that “everything in the report needs impact studies, which the European Commission should do”.

The social democrat stresses that “there are no European taxes, because the Council decides the new revenues for the EU budget unanimously and each Parliament has to ratify”. In this way, “these rates have to be calibrated” and sometimes there are “offsets”.

In the report, it is suggested that this levy could be levied on capital gains resulting from crypto-asset activities (based on a uniform tax rate for all EU member states), take the form of a tax on crypto-asset transactions, or a tax on cryptocurrency mining and trading determined according to their electricity consumption and environmental impact.