In a landmark ruling a US court ordered coinbase to hand over certain client data to the IRS.
All Coinbase clients who traded in excess of a certain amount of crypto currency will see their data being shared with the US Government. Coinbase says they obtained a partial victory as they were able to keep the low turnover clients data from the IRS in this ruling.
In some countries crypto currency exchanges are completely outlawed, for example China. In many of the countries where crypto currency is in a grey area, the various revenue services in those countries are already preparing taxation strategies. Most countries in the world considers all crypto currencies to be ‘assets’. The Blockonomi website publishes a more detailed article about crypto currencies and taxation.
The South African Reserve Bank does not currently consider crypto currencies as legal tender.
The South African Revenue Service treats any crypto currency as an asset, therefore earnings, trade and profits in any crypto currency is currently subject to the same rules as any normal asset. This includes capital gains tax, if the crypto currency is an investment as well as being subject to Value Added Tax if turnover requirements are met in terms of trading such assets.