Japan Moves Closer to Easing Tax on Corporate Crypto Holdings

Takashi Nakamichi and Nao Sano, Bloomberg News

Logos for Binance Coin, top, Ether, left, and Bitcoin inside a cryptocurrency exchange in Barcelona, Spain, on Wednesday, March 9, 2022. Bitcoin dropped back below $40,000, erasing almost all the gains sparked by optimism about U.S. President Joe Biden’s executive order to put more focus on the crypto sector. Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Japan’s ruling political party agreed to ease corporate tax rules for virtual currencies, signaling support for an industry reeling from the meltdown of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire.

The Liberal Democratic Party’s tax committee on Thursday approved a proposal to exempt companies from paying levies for paper gains on crypto coins that they hold after issuing them, according to a party politician.

“This is a very big step forward,” said Akihisa Shiozaki, an LDP lawmaker who is a member of the party’s Web3 project team, at a briefing. “It will become easier for various companies to do business that involves issuing tokens.”

The move indicates that policysetters in Japan continue to count on crypto technologies to drive growth even as FTX’s collapse sends shockwaves through the industry. Currently, profit from cryptocurrency holdings, including unrealized gains, is subject to corporate tax of about 30% in Japan.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s administration will finalize its annual tax policy guidelines by the year end based on the party’s decisions. The government normally submits legislation to parliament in January to rewrite tax codes for a new fiscal year starting April 1.

--With assistance from Russell Ward.