Last Updated on January 1, 2023 by Bitfinsider

According to a new budget approved by parliament on Thursday, cryptocurrency dealers in Italy would face a 26% capital-gains tax beginning in 2023.

According to Reuters, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s 2023 expansionary budget, which was produced in a haste at the end of the year, includes 21 billion euros ($22.3 billion) in tax incentives to help firms and people dealing with the energy crisis.

In Italy, where crypto is mostly unregulated, the 387-page budget defines crypto assets as “a digital representation of value or rights that may be exchanged and held electronically, using distributed ledger or comparable technologies.”

The move by Italy (and, more recently, Portugal) to impose a capital-gains tax on cryptocurrency comes ahead of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation, which promises licensing frameworks and stringent operating requirements for crypto-service providers in the 27-member bloc.
Gains from cryptocurrency trading are taxed at 26% if they surpass 2,000 euros every tax period. As an incentive for registering cryptocurrency gains, the proposed measure imposes a “substitute income tax” of 14% on the value of assets held as of Jan. 1, 2023, rather than the cost at the time of acquisition.
Losses from crypto investments can now be subtracted from gains and carried forward, according to the new laws.

Investors, on the other hand, may want some extra clarification on what constitutes a taxable event, as the paper also states that “the exchange of crypto assets with the same features and functionalities” does not constitute a “fiscal case.”