Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens support the Treasury Law Amendment (2022 Measures No. 4) Bill 2022. I particularly want to address schedule 2 of the bill. It's the part of the legislation that Senator Bragg was just speaking about. This schedule seeks to clarify the tax treatment of digital currencies and to maintain the status quo. This is ostensibly in response to the decision that Senator Bragg referred to—the decision by El Salvador to treat bitcoin as legal tender, which would give it foreign currency status in terms of its tax status. As I said, we support the bill, including schedule 2, but this was a pretty close-run thing for us.

We note the submission the Gadens lawyers made to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee inquiry that laid out some of the fundamental issues. They state:

The Bill proceeds on the unreliable assumption that cryptocurrency is a form of property.

They go on to explain:

There is no current Australian statute that anoints cryptocurrency with property status. Accordingly, to be treated as a form of property, the status must derive from common law.

This is a particularly complicated issue, and I think Senator Bragg acknowledged that in the contribution he just made. Because it is a particularly complicated issue it was a good decision that the previous government made—and colleagues know that I'm not one to very often or regularly get up and praise positions of the previous government—when they asked the Board of Taxation to undertake a review of the tax treatment of digital assets and transactions in Australia. That review is due to be completed in September this year. We anticipate that the Senate—and, for that matter, the government—could actually really have benefited from having the review before making decisions in what is a particularly complicated and nuanced policy area and one that has really only arisen over recent years or within the last decade or so. However, we do accept that the government, in proposing this schedule, is seeking to insure itself against the potential that, if bitcoin was to be treated as a foreign currency, investors may make claims for tax losses that could be considerably larger than would otherwise be the case. That is the basis on which we'll be supporting schedule 2 as it stands in this legislation.

I want to acknowledge that schedule 2 is only one part of the bill that is before us. I thank my colleague Senator Shoebridge for his previous contribution in relation to schedule 9, the taxation of military superannuation benefits: reversing the Douglas decision; and also my colleague Senator Rice, who made a contribution with regard to schedule 1, the Digital Games Tax Offset. I refer colleagues to those contributions for a more detailed assessment of those particular provisions. With those comments, I can confirm again that the Greens will be supporting this legislation.