On February 3, lawyers in the Netherlands urged clients to amend old tax returns and declare their crypto assets. A new EU directive on data sharing, which could come into force later this year, will give the Dutch tax agency Belastingdienst the ability to check whether someone owns cryptocurrencies.
To date, taxing cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin has been largely based on good faith. This means that Belastingdienst chooses to believe that cryptocurrency investors truthfully report their holdings under other assets on their tax returns. But the new EU directive Dac8 is likely to give Belastingdienst the power to investigate the accounting of cryptocurrency companies and gain insight into crypto assets. The tax agency already has the power to review the information with banks and pension funds.