I'm from Germany and sold my ETH at the peak some time ago with a profit of ~80k. It was a very strange feeling to receive that completely untaxed, as everything else is taxed here.
If you buy a car (let's say an oldtimer) and sell it for more money than you bought it after one year, it is also tax free.
Real estate is also tax free after two years (or ten years, depending on whether you have lived in it).
Gold one year (and free of VAT, when buying)
I haven’t lived in Germany, but in the European countries I know, that would qualify as capital gains.
Well thats the absurdity of the German tax system.
People which do not have much don't pay much taxes (lower %cut).
People who are more wealthy then that pay a lot of taxes (max %cut).
People who are even more wealthy again much less taxes (still max %cut, but docents of ways to circumvent taxes, and "safely" launder money e.g. by going through art collections, buildings etc.).
Today the law is stuck in the past and should be changed IMHO. At least an exception for green decentralized energy and/or excluding (only) small producers should be done, maybe more.
Thinking about it currently is the best political weather for it.
This difference between income taxes and possession / investment taxes is why pretty much everywhere in the world, high ranking and high earning people don't pay as much taxes because their earnings will be from stocks and non-wage income. I'm sure there's macro-economic reasons behind it, I dunno.
That's not really how it works though. You are not supposed to wait for them to ask you about it, you declare it truthfully and otherwise it's tax evasion. Not sure if that applies for your case but that's how these kind of taxes usually work.
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?
I have some crypto that I bought last year and some that I bought many years ago that don't have any transactions records for and now I'm lost at how to properly declare a sale.
Honestly, the complexity of this is stopping me from doing more crypto trading.
Otherwise it's just tax fraud.
I would put 20-30k aside to be save.
Also see https://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/topic/370675-taxation-o...
Good that they didn't go that way (even if only applies to assets held > 1 year)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household...
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...
So Canada gets credit for its uranium reserves and then divides it across the population.
No relation whatsoever to actual cash in the bank.
“ These figures are influenced by real estate prices, equity market prices, exchange rates, liabilities, debts, adult percentage of the population, human resources, natural resources and capital and technological advancements, which may create new assets or render others worthless in the future.”
I don't know if we have it completely correct and there's definitely a balancing act. There's also growing inequality. But what's the right amount of tax to pay? Not referencing you directly, but I often see crypto threads that call for the government to "keep their hands of my money" - and I wonder if these people would still say the same thing when their bins weren't emptied, or the roads were so full of potholes the lambo couldn't drive on them etc etc.
The pill capital of the world? Who can't decide which international alliances to run with?
I was with you until this.
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.
Where the hell do you live in the UK because that’s certainly not true in Birmingham. I moved to Germany and got orthopaedics, MRI, and physio in the space of 3 weeks. Would have taken months in the UK during COVID. Have you actually tried using the NHS?
> I can earn no or very little money and still be (mostly) taken care of by the state.
Also not true, the conservative government are very aggressive about taking away benefits
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...
Don't know about Germany but in my country government is corrupted and and tax paid is going straight into corruption.
While mine is one of the worse, it's definitely not the only one.
Do not support corruption.
Personally, I pay mostly income taxes, and I definitely feel that taxation should be shifted away form income over to property taxes, taxes on polution and taxes on resource consumption. (To encourage people to provide services to each other, and discourage them from buying physical goods that end up in a landfill within a few years.)