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Shares / Re: Foreign Dividends Tax on Crypto Fund Divi (TUSD)
« on: May 29, 2019, 06:52:55 am »
So if I buy goods direct with BTC, then SARS will tax the ZAR gain on that BTC as income?
But, if I have no ZAR, and can only sell BTC to obtain the ZAR for SARS' tax, will this BTC->ZAR also be taxed as income?
To rephrase, I'm getting a non-fiat dividend, how does SARS expect me to get the ZAR to pay their taxes (without incurring further taxes)?
Especially when they have phrases like "No deductions are allowed for expenditure incurred to produce foreign dividends."?
Can I send SARS the tax-portion directly in BTC? Or if I received a sack of mielies as payment, can I send SARS a mielie?
You'd have a similar problem with any "traditional" offshore collective scheme with dividends re-invested. A portion of your holdings would have to be disposed in order to pay for any taxation (ignoring, if any, foreign dividend withholding tax). This disposal itself would trigger CGT.....
But in all seriousness - Crypto is a new, complex and evolving area of taxation (worldwide) with many peculiarities. E.g. imagine a day trader continuously trading in alt coins. Each individual acquisition or disposal (in this case would undoubtable be revenue) of an Alt coin, would result in taxable profit (or loss) that needs to be translated to ZAR. Most exchanges don't provide the information to easily facilitate this calculation....... (although there are workarounds).
Another example, try claim a loss (either revenue or capital) for Crypto trading (or investing) activities with SARS........ Let me know how it goes . . (and yes, I do envisage some interesting cases and principles emerging in the next year or so)
I'm a newbie when it comes to taxes, but I've never looked into getting tax advice if there's the possibility of figuring it out myself.
The foreign dividend tax I can figure out. suppose I can make a best effort assessment, convert the dividend tax portion of TUSD crypto to ZAR, declare accordingly for effective 20% tax. And, to err on the side of caution, save another 25-30% portion of the dividend in case of a revenue ruling.
But I really banked on my historical ZAR->BTC purchases to classify for CGT when I sell BTC->ZAR 3 years after purchase. Actually, I day-traded much BTC and now probably have only 20% of the BTC left that I originally bought, lol, but fiat value is higher.
You may have encountered the crypto meme: "What if I told you that you won't have to sell BTC for fiat when the time comes?". So another recourse is to barter BTC for goods/services directly, more difficult for SARS to track, unless vendor requires ID registration.
Or I can invest BTC in dividend-producing funds and live off dividends, so paying less tax effectively.
Would like to scan through the 1000 pager dividend document one-day to get the gist. Thanks for the advice though.