The Ministry Of Finance Will Arrange Crypto Taxes As Financial Instruments, Here's The Industrial Response

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) is preparing strategic steps to expand the tax scheme for crypto assets.

If so far the imposition of taxes on digital assets applies when crypto is treated as a commodity, now the government is starting to lead to crypto as a more complex financial instrument.

"The Ministry of Finance sees the importance of tax treatment that is more adaptive to the dynamics, along with efforts to increase legal certainty in the national digital financial ecosystem," commented Tokocrypto CEO Calvin Kizana.

According to Calvin, this change in approach is also in line with the transfer of supervisory authority, from the Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (CoFTRA) to the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

Previously, the government had collected Value Added Tax (VAT) and Income Tax (PPh) Article 22 of each crypto transaction, as stipulated in the Minister of Finance Regulation (PMK) Number 63/PMK.03/2022. This provision is valid as long as crypto is still categorized as a digital commodity.

But in the future, the grouping of crypto as a financial instrument will open up space for the imposition of new types of taxes, especially those in the financial services sector.

This can include tax treatment for structured crypto investment activities, digital asset-based portfolio management, and possibly other financial services such as crypto derivatives.

"We fully support the Ministry of Finance's steps to adjust tax regulations with the reality of the current use of crypto," Calvin said further.

According to him, grouping crypto as a financial instrument will provide clarity for business actors and investors in carrying out their activities.

He also revealed that the renewal of the crypto classification-based tax scheme as a financial instrument is believed to bring a number of strategic benefits that can stimulate the industry more widely.

These include increasing the interest of retail and institutional investors, as well as increasing the volume of crypto asset trading, as long as the tax policy implemented is in line with the expectations of industry players, especially in terms of equal tax treatment with capital or stock markets.