{"id":256,"date":"2015-10-23T13:46:42","date_gmt":"2015-10-23T11:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/uncategorized\/bitcoins-vrijgesteld-wisselen\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T10:32:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T09:32:35","slug":"exchange-bitcoins-tax-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/bitcoins-vrijgesteld-wisselen\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax-free Bitcoin exchanges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1442\" src=\"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/20151023_Bitcoin_BTW_VWGNijhof-1024x384.jpg\" alt=\"20151023_Bitcoin_VAT_VWGNijhof\" width=\"1024\" height=\"384\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The challenge facing the law is to adapt to constantly changing social circumstances. This also applies to VAT, for which adapting to the many digital developments poses a major challenge.<\/p>\n<p>A few years ago, digital currency emerged, the best-known example being Bitcoin. A Swedish entrepreneur, Hedqvist, wanted to set up a business exchanging bitcoins for conventional currencies (dollars, euros, etc.) and vice versa, and asked the Swedish tax authorities whether these transactions were subject to VAT. On 22 October 2015, the European Court of Justice ruled that these transactions are subject to a VAT exemption.<\/p>\n<p>That exemption relates to: \u201c<em>transactions involving foreign exchange, banknotes and coins that are legal tender<\/em>\u201c. Bitcoins are neither banknotes nor coins, nor do they qualify as legal tender. The Court examines the purpose of the exemption and concludes that the exemption must apply to services consisting of the exchange of (virtual) currency in return for payment of an amount corresponding to the margin arising from the difference between the purchase and sale prices.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>De uitdaging waar het recht zich voortdurend voor ziet gesteld, is het aanpassen aan de voortdurend wijzigende maatschappelijke omstandigheden. Dat geldt ook voor voor de BTW, waarvoor de aanpassing aan de vele digitale ontwikkelingen een grote uitdaging vormt. Zo dook een paar jaar geleden het digitale geld op, met als bekendste voorbeeld de bitcoin. Een [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwg.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}