Germany: Crypto held for more than a year will not get taxed

But it still matters quite a bit. If you just see "deductions: 42%" on your paycheck, that's different from seeing "3% tax because you don't have children, 4% tax because you live in west Germany, ...". It helps you understand your life situation's impact on what ends up in your pocket and it also educates people in some way, e.g. there will be more public discussions if it's still necessary for western Germany to support eastern Germany if the impact is immediately visible on your paycheck.

In addition, since pension is not a tax, it matters both in the sense that higher pension contributions lower the tax you pay _and_ it also matters in that you earn claims against the state for receiving pension later on. Pension contributions are protected very differently by German law compared to if it were just a tax and you would gain welfare from the state when you stop working. This might be a nitty gritty detail, but it starts to matter when people want to change pension distributions - e.g. some changes suddenly might require 2/3 of the parliaments votes instead of a simple majority vote.

I could go on, but I think that's enough food for the mind.

No problem, I'm just trying to shed some light into it for those not German and/or not familiar with how it works in Germany. Also, these things are difficult and there are many pros and cons, so I'm not even sure what my own opinion is on many of those things. But I can at least provide some pros & cons and then everyone can make up their own mind about it.

> In NL you get AOW no matter if you're the queen or just Joe, you just have to be of pensionable age and iirc lived in NL during your working life.

In Germany it's different because the amount of your pension depends on your contributions - hence it makes sense for it to be different from tax that you pay (which have no impact on your pensions at all).

At the same time it has benefits if things are listed out separately, because it increases transparency to where your money goes. At the same time it increases beaurocracy (and hence costs for administration) quite a bit, in particular for foreigners.

> The public broadcasts are financed with tax money but not every household separately gets a bill equivalent to a Netflix subscription to be paid for a year ahead.

The reason why this is a fee in Germany and not a tax lies in the idea that the public media should be more independent from the politics. Whether this really works or not is a different question, but it was set up like this so that politicians can't "threaten" journalists and public media by reducing their budgets if they don't do as politicians want. At the same time. The process for deciding on the amount of the fee is a bit complicated and involves politicians as well, but not only.

It definitely adds friction that it's a separate system. For instance, exceptions are being made for certain groups e.g. people who live on social welfare, who are students without income and sufficient financial support from their parents, people who have heavily impaired vision/hearing and so on.

  Median wealth per adult in the US:  $79,274
  Median wealth per adult in France: $133,559

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

I am by no means suggesting we have it right, but widening the gap between have an have not and then saying "we have, we're ok - you look after yourself" isn't exactly a recipe for stability.

See the prices:

- We pay a lot more for cars, for example a 20000€ car in Germany costs 25000-30000€ in Portugal. After acquiring a car, depending on the engine capacity you pay more taxes (if you get a after-2010 car). For example, I drive a BMW 316d from 2017 and I pay 250€ anually to the state just to drive it. Our roads are garbage filled with holes and bad quality pavement. Also, a litter of diesel costs 2€, taxes for fuel are ~50%.

- Our wages are highly taxed as well, atleast 34% go to the social security and to the state each month. If you get 800€ per month and you boss decides to raise you by 100€, half of the money goes to the state.

- Food and services are highly taxed as well. Most stuff pays 23% of taxes for no freaking reason.

- Electricity and other services are also highly taxed as well. We pay 23% for electricity in our bill and we also have to pay for RTP (state national television...) from that bill. Water bill, only 5% of my bill is actually for what I've used in water, water is basically undrinkable but I pay 95% just for taxes.

- Rent, stocks and other stuff are all taxed to 28%. Meaning one month of rent and 28% goes directly to the state instead of the landlord. He also has to pay an yearly tax to keep his propriety. This tax depends on the size and a lot of factors but an apartment may pay 400€ yearly.

- A company pays around 4000 different taxes yearly, and the most ridiculous tax is that the government taxes the companies for profit they have yet to make. Companies in 2022 are already paying 2023 taxes.

And list could go on.

All this taxation for crappy healthcare system (IT'S NOT FREE...), crappy roads, crappy public services, crappy policing (Portugal it's not a safe country like many foreigners agree, try needing the police help and you'll see...) and of course, crappy military that is way short on NATO demands.

Point being: Taxing is basically theft, no matter the country you are in, you will never get the benefits of your taxes because corrupt governments, debt, etc...

If selling ETH after holding it for a year isn't a taxable event in Germany, and it sounds very much like it isn't, on what basis should this be reported to the tax authorities?

it is an opinion. The policy setting is not a fact based research, but ideologically based opinion. i would argue that any research is basically paid opinion pieces to try and convince someone on the fence.

> How does that justify taxing work more than capital?

the justification is in my comment above - it is taxed less than wage income to encourage people to spend their money investing, rather than spending it in consumption.

But a concern is that those with savings might move money out of the country to invest in jurisdictions with lower capital gains tax.

One view is that this tax jurisdiction forum-shopping creates a race to the bottom.

Except for crypto currencies. They operate in a grey market, not forbidden, not approved.

Without bitcoin, I'd have to transfer money at the oficial rate, and I'd have to have another person on the other side filling the endless paperwork they require. With bitcoin (litecoin nowadays, cheaper transactions) it's done in a few hours.

I would argue that these are the instincts that form the basis for our concept of ownership of assets, and predate our modern justice systems by tens of millions of years.