150,000 declarations of crypto-assets in France…Out of an estimated 5 million holders. For the tax administration, something is wrong and they intend to get their hands on the cryptocurrency assets that are not declared. “When we bring these two figures together, there is obviously a part that escapes us,” announced Minister Delegate for Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave in Les Échos on May 2. “I would like us to be able to align the powers of the tax administration with what is happening with foreign accounts, in terms of recovery periods, controls or sanctions.”

As part of a future anti-fraud law planned for the fall, the government wants to tighten controls on these cryptoasset operations located outside France but carried out by French people. Because, even if these operations are carried out on a foreign platform (or digital asset service provider PSAN) such as Binance or eToro, the taxpayer is required to declare them in the same way as his income. Only gains generated by operations on crypto-assets must be communicated to the tax authorities. These are taxable as soon as they exceed 305 euros.

Since January 1, 2019, France has had a specific tax regime for crypto-asset accounts located abroad. Thus, the digital assets concerned by the declaration are provided for in article 1649 bis C of the general tax code. To do this, a taxpayer who holds cryptocurrencies on a foreign account or platform must declare it in form 3916-bis.

The taxpayer is required to declare his account, even if it is closed during the tax year being declared, reminds the impots.gouv website. The site also specifies that the taxpayer can provide the precise references of their digital asset accounts in the “other information” section. If he does not declare his account(s), he is exposed to a fine of 750 euros per undeclared account. However, the administration’s ability to go back in time is limited to three years with regard to operations on crypto-assets compared to ten years for foreign bank accounts.