Spanish Treasury Proposes Tax Reform to Allow Cryptocurrency Seizures

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The Spanish Treasury is proposing a tax reform to allow the seizure of cryptocurrency assets when liquidating tax debts. According to local sources, the proposal would also allow the state administration to embargo these digital assets as it is giving the first steps by declaring electronic money entities as tax collection agents.

Spanish Treasury Seeks to Seize Cryptocurrency for Tax Debts

The Spanish Treasury is seeking to gain control and oversight over cryptocurrency assets owned by taxpayers. The institution proposes reforming the current tax law to allow Agencia Tributaria, the national tax watchdog, to seize the cryptocurrency holdings when executing taxpayers’ debts.

The proposal, made in 2021 to the European Union (EU), will be implemented soon, as local sources explain that the government is quickly moving to create the conditions needed for the reform to be applicable.

The Spanish administration issued a royal decree that now declared electronic money entities as tax collection agents, meaning that these would have to execute embargo actions on the customer’s digital money and crypto assets when required by the government, a duty only required from traditional banks and credit institutions before.

Also, this year, taxpayers will be required to declare, for the first time, the cryptocurrency assets held outside of the country, data that will be useful to apply this new regulation when passed. Data from crypto tax statements obtained since 2021 will also be used to collect money from tax debts when needed.

However, the quick application of these cryptocurrency laws will establish a burden on Spanish regulators, who will have to change their definitions and adapt to the new tax framework and its rules due to their incompatibility with the concepts introduced in EU-wide rules like MiCA, the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, which has a different definition of cryptocurrency, and the general EU tax directive to be applied in 2026.

What do you think about the tax reform proposal to allow the Spanish administration to seize and embargo cryptocurrency assets from taxpayers? Tell us in the comments section below.

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