I'm not usually a fan of HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs - the UK tax authority). Much of their output is so unintelligible it might as well be written in Martian. But just occasionally, they write something in clear, comprehensible terms.
This is the case with their online document CRYPTO1000 - Introduction to Cryptoassets. It has been written by HMRC as an internal manual for their own staff as an introduction to a world which is pretty alien to many of them, and made public so that tax accountants and taxpayers can read it and understand the HMRC perspective on crypto. If only they could write all their other documents with such clarity !
The document contains nine brief chapters, each devoted to a very simplified but highly comprehensible outline of it's topic. It starts with "What are cryptoassets", and ends with the delightfully titled "Why HMRC does not consider buying and selling cryptoassets to be gambling".
If you have friends and family who think that you've gone totally bokners investing in crypto and taken risks on something incomprehensible, you should get them to read this, it is a fabulous primer.
Subsequent documents in the series are somewhat more convoluted, with CRYPTO20000 covering the tax treatment of cryptoassets for UK taxpayers, CRYPTO40000 covering the tax treatment for UK businesses, and CRYPTO100000 being a guide for HMRC tax inspectors on how to carry out a tax investigation which includes cryptoassets. Most of those documents are of interest if you are a UK taxpayer, but may not reflect the approach of tax authorities in other countries.
It's quite interesting to compare HMRC's precision and clarity in these documents with the rather woolly way the UK FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) have approached the regulation of Binance.
Disclaimer: Although I have accountancy qualifications, none of this is post should be considered tax advice (my qualifications and experience are focussed on accountancy in business, not tax accountancy), and the content above should be considered as general entertainment and maybe part of your DYOR. All links open in new windows.
