Japan weighs in on tax exemption for bitcoin

To tax or not to tax, that is the question that Japanese lawmakers are mulling over.

Recently, financial regulators in the country tabled a proposal that will see digital currencies like bitcoins treated as real money. Now, calls—particularly from members of the ruling party—are mounting in the Japanese Diet to exempt bitcoins from consumption tax.

Tsukasa Akimoto, a legislator from the Liberal Democratic Party, proposed during a budgetary committee hearing in the lower house last Feb. 5 that bitcoin purchased should be exempt from an 8 percent consumption tax, Nikkei reported.

According to the report, Akimoto asked Finance Minister Taro Aso: “Can’t you consider not imposing consumption tax on bitcoins in line with the international trend?”