European Parliament looks to tax cryptos to help fund EU budget

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(Kitco News) - In an effort to shore up its finances and ensure that it can deliver on the key policy objectives of the EU, lawmakers of the European Parliament have proposed a tax on cryptocurrencies as part of their updated 2023 budget. The annual budget of the bloc is roughly 170 billion euros ($185 billion).

A draft report of the budget proposal notes that the cryptocurrency market has been growing rapidly since the 2008 financial crisis, with the total crypto market capitalization reaching EUR 2 trillion in May 2021.

The revenues from a European tax on crypto-assets would “flow into the European budget as a new own resource,” the report said. It went on to note that “crypto-assets are progressively considered as a genuine means of payment and part of investment strategies.”