"Crypto assets will be subject to VAT because they are a commodity as defined by the trade ministry. They are not a currency," the official, Hestu Yoga Saksama, told a media briefing. "So we will impose income tax and VAT."
As I understand it, this is not a legislation specific to cryptocurrencies, but rather because of the nature of the classification of these currencies as “commodity” and therefore a value-added tax was imposed on all commodities?
So nothing new happened, and the tax is not too expensive and you can avoid it if you keep hodling bitcoins and don't sell them.
that's right! they classified it under commodity, hence, imposing this VAT. and that is why they can't use it as payment method because they are not distinguishing this as digital currency that can be alternative for payment method. in the near future, they may change its classification once they start accepting crypto as payment method.
and yes, unlike other countries that are imposing tax on crypto, their percentage is quite low. which is good for their small crypto users. the country is not very rich so it won't help if they will put high tax to its small users.