{"id":4003,"date":"2025-10-07T16:20:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T14:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gwgl-hamburg.de\/blog\/post\/steuerhinterziehung-bei-influencern-finanzverwaltung-prueft-datensaetze-2\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T16:20:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T14:20:16","slug":"lbf-nrw-steps-up-action-against-tax-evasion-with-cryptocurrency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/lbf-nrw-geht-verstaerkt-gegen-steuerhinterziehung-mit-kryptowaehrung-vor\/","title":{"rendered":"LBF NRW steps up action against tax evasion with cryptocurrency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>LBF NRW steps up action against tax evasion with cryptocurrency<\/strong><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The <strong>North Rhine-Westphalia State Office for Combating Financial Crime (LBF NRW)<\/strong> is currently analysing a comprehensive data package on trading in crypto assets. The data set currently comprises around 4,000 potential tax cases.<\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2023, the North Rhine-Westphalian tax administration had already received and centrally analysed data from a German crypto trading platform by way of a collective information request. According to recent press reports, the majority of these cases have already been processed and have led to <strong>Back taxes in the \u201ehigh single-digit million range\u201c<\/strong> led.<\/p>\n<p>The LBF NRW prepares the new data records centrally and sends them to the relevant tax offices throughout Germany for further checking.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tax categorisation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the <strong>Private assets<\/strong> profits from the sale of crypto assets may be taxable as private sales transactions (Section 23 EStG) if the period between acquisition and sale is less than one year; exchange and payment transactions are deemed to be sales.<\/p>\n<p>Income from commercial trading in crypto assets as well as from activities such as mining, staking or the acceptance of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment are regularly <strong>Operating income<\/strong> and recognised in the profit calculation (Section 4 (1) or Section 5 EStG). Depending on the legal form, profits are subject to income tax or corporation tax and, if applicable, trade tax.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>pure exchange<\/strong> of cryptocurrencies into legal tender or other cryptocurrencies is, according to the case law of the ECJ (judgement of 22.10.2015 - C-264\/14, Hedqvist) <strong>VAT-free<\/strong>. Providing companies <strong>but services against payment<\/strong> in the form of cryptocurrencies, these are <strong>Taxable and regularly taxable transactions<\/strong> within the meaning of \u00a7 1 UStG.<\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><strong>Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With the <strong>EU Directive DAC8<\/strong>, which will apply from 1 January 2026, will create an EU-wide reporting obligation for crypto service providers. This will further expand the cross-border exchange of information - the transparency of crypto transactions will increase and the level of scrutiny is likely to rise further.<\/p>\n<p>Those affected who have earned crypto income in the past and have (possibly) not declared it in full should promptly review the correction of their declarations - if necessary, taking into account the possibilities and limits of a voluntary disclosure. Our <a href=\"\/en\/kompetenzen\/steuern\/\" title=\"Tax consultant Hamburg\">Tax consultant<\/a> and <a href=\"\/en\/team\/\" title=\"Specialist lawyers for tax law Hamburg\">Specialist lawyers for tax law<\/a> will be happy to support you.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LBF NRW steps up action against tax evasion with cryptocurrency<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,22],"tags":[343,344,335,143,55],"class_list":["post-4003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allgemein","category-steuern","tag-krypto-steuern","tag-kryptowaehrung-steuerpflicht","tag-nacherklaerung-einkuenfte","tag-steuerhinterziehung-de","tag-steuerstrafrecht"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}