From America to the United Kingdom and from Russia to Australia, cryptocurrency taxation in major bitcoin strongholds is complicated. Contradictory or non-existent laws, excessive red tape, and maddeningly vague guidelines have conspired to make the tax-paying process more arduous than it need be. Now, a number of advocates are pushing for simplified crypto tax guidelines.

Death, Taxes, and Cryptocurrency

It was Benjamin Franklin who composed the oft-quoted aphorism that "in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." In the world of cryptocurrency, the inevitability of those affairs is also accompanied by resignation to their being inevitably complicated. As it stands, most cryptocurrency holders have more pressing concerns than bequeathing their digital estate – like trying to work out how much tax they are due on their previous year's crypto trading.

Across North America, there is a growing consensus that bitcoin taxes need to be simplified. Some segments of the cryptoconomy are drowning under excessive red tape – think of the much maligned New York Bitlicense, which has left Bittrex seething and which Andrew Yang has vowed to reform, describing it as having a "chilling effect on the US digital asset market." In other realms of the cryptosphere, however, not least taxation, the reverse is arguably true, where opaque guidelines have left citizens in the dark.