However, tightened fiscal policy could weaken credit demand from 2019
- Funds may have to pay higher taxes or even retroactive fines for past profits.
- Bitcoin has a market value of 111.5 billion dollars, according to Morgan Stanley calculations
- Part of the problem is due to the difference of consideration that two of the main regulatory entities in the United States give virtual currencies.
Morgan Stanley estimates that the hedge funds launched last year up to 84 cryptocurrency products, which accumulate a total AUM of 2,000 million dollars (US $ 2 Bn).
But a recent announcement by the Internal Revenue Service of the United States (ISR) that it is ready to intensively analyze the taxation of investments in cryptocurrencies later this year has set off alarms.
Funds that appear throughout this year and next – and that focus their investments on these vehicles – may have to pay higher taxes or even retroactive fines for past profits.
“There is still a lot of uncertainty about how the IRS will value virtual currencies,” Clay Littlefield, a tax lawyer at Alston & Bird in North Carolina, told Bloomberg.
And even after accumulating drops of 55% per cent this year, bitcoin has a market value of 111.5 billion dollars , according to Morgan Stanley calculations.
Part of the problem is due to the difference of consideration that two of the main regulatory entities in the United States give to virtual currencies. While the IRS considers them a property and not a currency , the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) believes that they should be treated as raw materials . This could generate certain tax advantages if the IRS agrees, estimate the various sources consulted by Bloomberg.
Currency or raw material?
“The statutes with which we are operating were written in 1935. And it is often difficult to discover where this regulation fits into something as new and innovative as bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies, but depending on the regulatory regime under which they are considered, there are different aspects of all that, “explained Chris Giancarlo, president of the CFTC last May
