La statement of income It is one of the tax obligations that most stresses and worries all taxpayers, due to the often complicated process and the need to not make mistakes to avoid being subject to fines or claims from the Tax Agency (AEAT). In this sense, it is vital to correctly manage the information from the Treasury, especially when it comes to the sections that cover the digital economy, such as cryptocurrency transactions.
In order not to fail when facing the Income Tax campaign, which starts on April 2 and will run until June 30, it is important to keep in mind a basic concept: only cryptocurrencies, for example Bitcoin or Ethereum, with which a transaction has been made are declared. sale or exchange operations, regardless of whether profit or loss has been made.
PREPARE YOUR WALLETTo make it even clearer, if a taxpayer only bought cryptocurrencies during 2024, That is, if you only acquired BTC, but did not carry out any type of transaction with them, which in crypto jargon is known as "holding", you do not have to declare them. The Treasury stipulates that it is only mandatory declare digital assets with which sales or exchange transactions were carried out.
How to declare correctly?
Keeping in mind that the Tax Agency will focus on the digital economy, Where crypto transactions will be closely scrutinized, it is important to know the correct way to reflect these movements in your income.
First of all, remember that only cryptocurrencies that were sold or exchanged last year should be declared. To do this, the Treasury indicates that the following should be included: profits or losses obtained with digital currencies in the section called 'Capital gains and losses arising from transfers of other assets', which is the section dedicated to cryptocurrencies.
Another element that must be considered in order not to make mistakes in the declaration of digital assets, is that although the crypto exchanges If they have not involved a conversion to euros or another traditional currency, they must be declared. The reason is that the Tax Agency considers these transactions to be exchanges that impact assets, so reporting them is mandatory.
So if at some point during the year, BTC is exchanged for Ethereum, and despite the fact that this operation does not involve the use of a traditional currency such as the euro, for tax purposes it is a swap between assets which generates a capital gain or loss, and therefore must be declared.
As a detail, the specialists explain that in these cases it is necessary to declare the difference between the value at which the crypto was acquired originally, for example BTC, and the value they had at the time of exchange with Ethereum.
Accounting operation
Having determined what and when cryptocurrencies must be declared, the Tax Agency stipulates that the operations with digital assets They must be accounted for using the FIFO (First In, First Out) method, which establishes that the first cryptos purchased are the first to be sold or exchanged, or what is the same, the initial value at which the cryptos were purchased will be the basis for calculating capital gain or loss.
This process assumes that the profit or loss will be obtained by subtracting the value for which the cryptocurrency was sold or exchanged from the value for which it was initially acquired. For example, if BTC was purchased at a price of 30.000 euros, but last year it was exchanged for Ethereum when BTC was valued at 35.000 euros, this crypto exchange is seen as a exchange that generated a capital gain 5.000 euros, so it must be declared. On the other hand, if the result is negative, a loss is incurred that could be offset by other gains.
It is appropriate to reiterate that all the transactions with digital assets must be reflected in the section called 'Capital gains and losses arising from transfers of other assets'. Each taxpayer must have a accurate recording of all crypto transactions that has been made, detailing the date and prices of purchase, sale or exchange.
What to do with the WorldCoin biometric scan?
For the 2024 Income Tax return, another digital asset that comes into play is the cryptos obtained with iris scanning between 2022 and 2024, thanks to the initiative of WorldCoin, a biometric cryptocurrency project with iris recognition.
The possibility of Obtain tokens by accessing the iris scan was exploited by many people until March 2024. From that date on, Worldcoin was prevented from continuing to carry out the biometric eye capture, due to a precautionary measure issued by the Spanish Data Protection Agency, which in December of last year managed to force the project to delete all the iris codes it had stored.
Despite this, it should be clarified that all the taxpayers who have earned cryptos By allowing their retinal scans for almost the entire first quarter of 2024, they will have to declare it to the Treasury, since it was a transaction with digital assets that generated a capital gain, and which may have a tax impact if they are subsequently sold at a lower price.
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The latter is explained in that if the tokens obtained by retinal scanning at a value lower than the original, the capital loss can only be offset by the savings base - it operates with lower rates - and not by taxes already paid on the general base.
