Cryptoassets like Bitcoin or Ethereum no longer escape, in principle, the nets of the French tax authorities. This digital investment, increasingly popular with savers, has been taxed on its capital gains since 2019. According to the Directorate General of Public Finances, 20,000 tax households declared gains of 400 million euros in total in 2022 for the the year 2021. The authorities do not provide information on the proportion of this sum deducted by taxes, but in view of the taxation in force, 30% had to go directly to the state coffers.
Like any other capital income, capital gains realized through crypto-assets are subject to the single flat-rate levy – the “flat tax” put in place by Emmanuel Macron in 2018 – which is set at 30%. It is important to emphasize that exchanges from one digital asset to another are not taxed. Only exchanges to a traditional currency such as the euro or the dollar are, as well as payments for a service made directly using a cryptocurrency.
If the transactions are considered too regular by the public authorities, the gains are no longer considered as capital income but as industrial and commercial profits. Therefore, it is no longer the same taxation that applies. Taxation does not spare capital gains collected in foreign accounts, which crypto-asset enthusiasts often use to carry out their transactions.
These gains of 400 million euros declared to the tax authorities for the year 2021 mark a step in the normalization of crypto-assets. However, the sum remains well below the estimates of capital gains during this year, which was marked by the explosion in the value of crypto-assets. The reference value, bitcoin, for example, more than doubled between January and December 2021.
An estimate by the specialized consulting firm Chainanalysis brought the gains made in 2021 thanks to cryptoassets in France to more than 4 billion dollars. This is ten times more than the amount duly declared to public finances. In other words, a majority of cryptoasset holders still seem to evade taxes.