Budget measure requiring self-assessment tax returns

Date: 31 Mar 2023

Vicente Luckina Bunn

Waqar Shah, Tax Disputes partner at law firm Kingsley Napley comments on capital gains from crypto assets from 2024.

Commenting on the Budget measure requiring self-assessment tax returns to separately identify capital gains from crypto assets from 2024, Waqar Shah, Tax Disputes partner at law firm Kingsley Napley LLP says: “In requiring tax returns to separately identify crypto assets in self-assessment tax returns’ capital gains tax pages from 2024, the UK is taking the lead from the IRS who introduced something similar for US taxpayers.  This may go some way to help HMRC reduce the crypto aspect of the tax-gap (for the IRS it was identified to be c. $ 50billion).  The logical next step, of course, will be for HMRC to issue “nudge letters” to those with undisclosed crypto accounts to encourage them to disclose their crypto assets in order to avoid high penalties and interest.  Given an estimated 6% of UK adults now invest in cryptocurrencies, this is an asset class HMRC can’t ignore and it is an area where people have made large gains sometimes outside of the tax net. Effectively this new requirement should be a warning to those with crypto assets that HMRC intends to address this and will inevitably launch more investigations in this space in future.”

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