Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Paul Quickenden: Swyftx New Zealand Country Manager on ACT's plan for tax-free profits on crypto

Transcript

Paul Quickenden: Swyftx New Zealand Country Manager on ACT's plan for tax-free profits on crypto · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Actors launch is planned to make New Zealand a country
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of crypto pioneers. Key policy is the removal of a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: tax on crypto gains earned after it is held for
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: more than a year. They'd also like to introduce a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: tax exemption on small digital currency purchases. Paul Quickenden is SwiftX,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: New Zealand country manager, Blockchain New Zealand executive council member
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: with me this morning.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Paul, good morning.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Good morning, Ryan. How are you?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I'm well, thank you. What is this? Good policy? What
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: are we paying tax on at the moment that we
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: wouldn't under this plan?
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Really interesting question. So it kind of puts us in
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: line with a couple of other countries like Germany and
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Portugal and to some extent the US. Last time I spoke,
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: it's kind of said there's at least 350,000, probably close
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: to 500,000 Kiwis who hold cryptoassets. And at the moment,
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: every time you kind of sell or buy a crypto asset,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: there's effectively a capital gain on that. And so what
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Act has come out with is, and I canvassed the
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: base last night, that it's pretty progressive. People who are
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: in it for a long term are feeling a little
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: bit punished at the moment, the way the IRD has
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: treated the sector. And then if you are using your
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: crypto assets to pay for goods and services, much like
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: you use your card and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: It's a very onerous process. You have to know what
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: the US rate was that you bought the cryptocurrency at.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: You've got to convert that into New Zealand dollars at
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: the time you bought it, all that sort of stuff.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: And we're talking about a lot of work for a
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: very small amount of tax. And our interpretation is that
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: they're talking about what's called a de minimis, so like
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: a $ 50 or $ 100 cap on transactions that are essentially tax-free.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Paul, why are we paying essentially a capital gains tax
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: on crypto?
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Inland Revenue has applied some thinking to the sector from
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: a while ago that treats it very much like it
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: did with gold. And they're kind of saying, look, there's
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: no real reason to buy this gold other than speculate
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: it's going to go up and so they're treating at
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: the cryptocurrency sector uh this much the same way and
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: so um what acts come out with um with with
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: several other good policies actually uh is is a it's
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: kind of saying well look if we believe the future
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: is digital money why why are we making it a
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: little bit hard for people to come in here and
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: you know make make trade-off decisions essentially about where they
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: live if we want to welcome in this kind of
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: new pioneer into the country. And I think that's how
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: they're going about it. Interesting.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: All right, Paul, nice to have you on the show
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: this morning. Paul Quickenden, SwiftX New Zealand Country Manager.