"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,
The basis was last year's passed tax law which was aimed at raising more funds for economic recovery. This allows the Government to imposed VAT and Income Tax on capital gains for trading commodities BTC and other crypto has been recognized as a commodity since 2019.
and the tax is not too expensive .
Yes the VAT rate is below most goods or services taxed at 11% but the income tax on capital gains is the same with final tax on shares listed on Indonesian stock exchange.
You can't tax every crypto trader and holders. How do you tax people trading defi on decentralized exchanges and selling on P2P using escrow. It will really be difficult. Currently, my bank doesn't know the source of my credit, it's not tied to commodity. Censoring crypto is very complex.
Implementing rules and regulations are still being drafted but you can already assume that they will focus on licensed and regulated crypto exchanges in Indonesia. They can try to expand on DEX and P2P trades after that.