By
Godfrey Benjamin
February 7th, 2024
Whether it is an attempt to set a precedent or not, the tax authorities of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have revised its guidance on crypto taxation in the country.
A Nashville couple identified as Joshua and Jessica Jarrett seems to be setting a legal precedent with the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the taxation of unclaimed/unsold staked Tezos (XTZ) coins. With internal court proceedings set to be released today Thursday, Blockworks reported beforehand that the IRS is set to make a refund of the paid tax on 8,876 XTZ coins worth $3,293 back to the Nashville couple. The coins were reportedly created as staked rewards in 2019.
Per the reports, the couple filed a complaint against the US IRS back in May 2021 requesting that the tax they paid on the quoted staked Tezos coin be refunded. The couple backed their claim on grounds that the IRS was onto something “unprecedented, which is tax creative activity rather than income.”
“Taxing newly created cakes, books, or tokens as income would have far-reaching and detrimental effects on taxpayers and the U.S. economy, and is without support in the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, caselaw, or the Constitution,” the Nashville couple posited.
With the agreement to refund the Jarrett’s, the IRS might have set a landmark that is entirely going to boost the fast-growing staking industry in the United States. According to a Forbes report on this same matter, the Jarrett’s are planning to pursue this case further in order to seek comprehensive protection against similar tax crackdowns in the near future.
Despite the broad accolade that this news has garnered in the social media world, a number of stakeholders are criticizing the hasty conclusions on the matter pending when the court proceedings were made known.
“Lots of information coming through. It’s emerging that this was NOT a court ruling but in fact a one-off settlement- something is often done to AVOID a precedent setting decision being handed down – but new info still trickling out,” TokenTax, a crypto, and DeFi tax expert said in a tweet in response to Blockwork’s claims that the IRS will not “tax unsold staked crypto as income.”
On the Nashville Couple and IRS Case, UK Begs to Differ
Whether it is an attempt to set a precedent or not, the tax authorities of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have revised its guidance on crypto taxation in the country.
Per the new guidance, all accrued income earned from crypto and decentralized finance staking will be taxed, depending on whether it is considered capital or revenue. This consideration is also further dependent on how the transaction is structured.
“You will need to determine whether the return has the nature of income in the hands of the lender/liquidity provider or whether the return has the nature of capital. That is, was the return earned by the lender/liquidity provider by providing a service to the borrower/DeFi lending platform, or was the return realised from the capital growth of an asset owned by the lender/liquidity provider?” the regulator wrote.
While the HMRC is aware of how complicated the operating models can be, it posits that it is going to be flexible in its approach based on a non-exhaustive list to help determine the nature of the return.
