STA, 7 April 2022 - The government on Thursday adopted a bill that would impose a 5% tax on natural persons when they turn their cryptocurrency into a fiat currency or buy goods or services, but only if the sum exceeds EUR 10,000 a year.

The government proposed the bill be rushed through the National Assembly. When passed, the tax would apply to the sums redeemed since the date it came into effect.

The Finance Ministry estimates the budget receipts from the new taxation would amount to at least EUR 1 million a year in the first few years.

A release from the government says the bill tackles taxation of virtual currencies on redemption "in an administratively simple and understandable way" while securing fiscal revenue resulting from the tax.

"The regulation of this area will improve Slovenia's competitive position in taxation of virtual currencies, especially in light of the increasingly uncertain situation on the global financial markets, where virtual currencies are gaining ground, which also increases the opportunity costs borne by the state due to untimely taxation of this new source of tax revenue," the release reads.

The new tax would apply to natural persons who pay taxes in Slovenia when they exchange cryptocurrency for a fiat currency and transfer the proceeds to a transaction account or buy goods, services or other assets with cryptocurrency.

The tax would not apply to legal entities which have cryptocurrency recorded as their assets or for individuals who hold cryptocurrency as their business assets.

A natural person who buys and sells cryptocurrency in their own name and on their own account would not be considered to be carrying out a business activity, regardless of the number of cryptocurrency transactions carried out.

The tax liability would arise the moment the virtual currency is redeemed, unless in case of a proven loss. At the same time, each natural person could redeem EUR 10,000 worth of virtual currencies a year tax-free.

The tax base would be determined by deducting the EUR 10,000 exemption from the sum of the value of all the cryptocurrency liquidated in a calendar year. Of that base 5% tax would be paid.

The individuals concerned would be able to submit a tax return once a year or each time after liquidating virtual currency. At any rate they would be required to pay tax within 30 days after submitting the return.

The government proposes the law take effect on the 15th day after its publication in the Official Gazette. Even though it would not be valid for the entire calendar year of 2022, the government proposes the exemption apply in the full EUR 10,000 even that year.

Individuals who do not have a business currently do not pay tax for turning cryptocurrencies into liquidity. The Financial Administration examines case by case whether the person is involved in business activity, taking into account the number of transactions and the sum liquidated.

STA, 31 August 2021 - Only a day after putting out a proposal on taxation of trading in cryptocurrencies, the Financial Administration (FURS) said it will amend the proposal amid a strong response from stakeholders to give taxpayers the option to choose between paying tax either on the profits they make or as a percentage of the cryptocurrency they cash in.

FURS initially proposed imposing a 10% tax rate on the amount of cryptocurrency turned into non-virtual currency or spent on goods or services, a proposal that FURS today said met with "extensive response from the interested public".

Having looked into the reactions, FURS now plans to change its proposal so that the taxpayers - individuals who are Slovenian tax residents - can either opt for the 10% tax rate on the amount of the cryptocurrency cashed in or, alternatively, pay a 25% tax on the profit they make.

The tax authority emphasized that the proposal applies only to physical persons who are Slovenian tax residents and not to legal entities.

Under the amended proposal, amounts of up to EUR 15,000 during one calendar year will not have to be reported and will not be taxed.

Given the immense development in virtual currencies in recent years, FURS said the bill sought to respond to the trend at least to some extent and simplify things. It said Slovenia wanted to be the first European country to take such and approach.

FURS offered a calculation demonstrating how two modes of taxation would function in practice. If an individual bought one Bitcoin in 2018 at the price of EUR 3,000 and cashed it in today for EUR 40,000 they would either pay EUR 4,000 tax on the amount sold or a EUR 9,250 capital gains tax.

Commenting on the original proposal in Tuesday's commentary newspaper Finance has calculated that it would mean that if you buy EUR 1,000 worth of Bitcoins and later sell them for EUR 1,100, your profit would be EUR 100 while the tax would be 110 euros.

Under current legislation taxable income from virtual currencies depends on the circumstances of each individual case but as a rule physical persons need to pay capital gains tax from selling cryptocurrencies when they make the income as business.

STA, 31 August 2021 - The newspaper Finance approves of imposing a tax on earnings from cryptocurrencies in Tuesday's commentary, but lambastes the Financial Administration's proposal for a 10% tax on the sale value of cryptocurrencies as being unreasonable.

The paper says there are several arguments in favour of taxing the crypto market, however the direction which the Financial Administration is taking with its proposal is "completely misguided".

"They want to tax 10% of the sales value of cryptocurrencies. This means that if you buy 1,000 euros' worth of Bitcoins and later sell them for 1,100 euros, your profit is 100 euros and the tax 110 euros."

Calling the idea unreasonable, the paper says trading in cryptocurrencies is much like trading in securities; no one buys them to use them as a currency and everyone buys them to sell them for a higher value later on, so there is no reason for traders not to pay tax on capital gains, at the same rate as investors in shares.

The paper says the state has been sending out a wrong message by not taxing trading in cryptocurrencies so far and is sending a wrong one now with a proposal that in many cases means state 'confiscation' of all or almost all profit.

"Since nothing is as bad as it seems let us hope the Finance Ministry will see reason and draw up a normal proposal - so that cryptocurrencies are taxed by profit, just like shares."

STA, 16 November 2020 - Slovenian-based bitcoin mining marketplace Nicehash will make the final reimbursement to its clients on 16 December, three years after its clients had their cryptocurrency stolen in a hack. So far, Nicehash has returned 82% of the stolen currency, the company said a press release on Monday.

Nicehash operator H-BIT launched a reimbursement programme in February 2018 after the marketplace was hacked in December 2017.

Over 4,640 bitcoins were stolen at about EUR 10,000 per coin. The current value of bitcoin is at about EUR 13,800.

The reimbursement plan was funded from commissions and profits and was expected to be completed sooner, however poor market conditions in cryptocurrency made this impossible, the company also said.

"Nevertheless we have remained committed to our initial promise to reimburse the stolen funds in full," said the press release, adding that the objective was to show to the public that the company had only good intentions and to help improve trust in digital currency operations.

H-BIT director Martin Škorjanc was quoted by the press release as saying that the platform was now among the safest cryptocurrency markets in the world.

The cyber hack at Nicehash was investigated by the Europol and the FBI, and the company also hired an international digital forensics agency Lifars. Nevertheless, the perpetrators were not found.

All our stories on Nicehash

1 September 2019 - Eligma is a Slovenian blockchain company that launched in 2018, and one aim of the firm is to make cryptocurrencies part of daily life, and thus of shopping. To this end it has produced Elipay, an infrastructure for accepting crypto payments (in Bitcoin Cash, ELI, Bitcoin and Ether) that ensures the merchant always receives settlement in the local fiat currency. It is this service that has drawn the attention of Roger Ver’s Bitcoin.com and the Swiss firm Pangea Blockchain Fund, which together will invest €4 million in the Slovenian start-up.

According to a press release, it is Elipay and the related app that have made Slovenia the leading country in the world with regard to the number of brick-and-mortar stores and service providers that accept both regular money and crypto. The investment is aimed at helping Elipay expand beyond its current markets of Slovenia and Croatia, where more than 430 businesses now accept crypto currencies on a daily basis.

Eligma CEO Dejan Roljic is quoted as saying: “The development of finance is going towards cash becoming a thing of the past. Among other things, this is because doing business with it is quite time-consuming and expensive. On the other hand, one of the main problems with cryptocurrencies is that the confirmation of transactions can take several minutes if not more, which is unacceptable in daily shopping. Eligma effectively solved this problem with Elipay, which enables instant crypto transactions; furthermore, the merchant receives settlement in local fiat and is thus safe from crypto volatility. This makes the use of cryptocurrencies quick and effective for daily use. We must not forget that cryptocurrencies were envisioned as the electronic cash of the future.“

Shopping with Elipay is said to be very easy: the buyer scans the purchase QR-code with a crypto wallet, selects the cryptocurrency they wish to use and confirms the transaction. The current list of Elipay locations can serve more than 20,000 users of the Elipay app, along with some 4 million users of the Bitcoin.com Wallet, with other crypto wallets expected to join the system soon. Users of Elipay can also  benefit by receiving Eligma (ELI) tokens with every purchase they make. The all-time high of the token was US$0.050306 on 5 September 2018, and it is currently trading at US$0.021759.

You can learn more about Eligma here, while all our blockchain stories are here

STA, 29 July 2019 - The Slovenian Financial Administration (Furs) has told the STA that serious efforts have been under way to detect and sanction individuals engaged in regular crypto currency mining or trading while failing to pay taxes. It highlighted the example of a miner who had to pay EUR 100,000 in taxes after his undeclared activity was discovered.

Furs responded last year to the soaring values of popular cryptocurrencies by issuing warnings that regular crypto mining and trading can amount to a work activity that needs to registered and is subject to taxation.

Cases are evaluated on an individual basis, with key factors being the turnover value and number of transactions in a specific period.

Asked whether any undeclared miners or traders had been discovered in recent months, Furs highlighted the example of an individual who was discovered to have engaged in regular mining over an extensive period which would have required registration as an activity.

"This discovery of undeclared work led to the individual making a self-declaration and paying almost EUR 100,000 taxes," Furs explained.

It remains unclear how many people in Slovenia are engaged in the activity of mining or trading in cryptocurrencies.

Furs has various channels for obtaining information, indulging through the international exchange of data among tax administrations.

STA, 8 January 2018 - The business newspaper Finance examines on Tuesday the remnants of the crypto craze that gripped Slovenia at end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, arguing that "not much is left": several companies that turned to ICOs for funding went bust, while others barely live on.

"Not a single token [released in Slovenian ICOs] has managed to stay above the price with which they entered the crypto market. This means that anybody who participated in any Slovenian ICO project and has not sold its tokens, has lost their money," the paper notes.

There were many ideas in various fields, including banking, auditing, payment services, supply chains and car rentals, and some still persist, but "it is becoming crystal clear that they did not join the hype to solve the problems but because it was easy to raise funds".

"I do believe that the intentions of most crypto entrepreneurs were not bad and that they really wanted to do something good.

But their wish was powered significantly by the fact that they could play without their own input, that is with the funds of others," the paper goes on under Without a Light at the End of Cryptotunnel.

"If they would have had to take out a loan to embark on their business path, nine out of ten companies likely would not have had emerged," says Finance.

"On the other hand, many who left the cryptoparty in time got rich and earned enough in a couple of years to be covered for the rest of their lives. Some even entered the ranking of the richest Slovenians.

All out Bitcoin and crypto stories can be found here

The crypto world may have cooled down from the dizzy heights of December 2017, but Slovenia is still making news on the scene, if not for the various developments at BTC City, then for Monday’s announced sale of Bitstamp, the biggest Slovene success in the field to date. 

Bitstamp has been purchased by NXMH, a Belgium-based investment company that is the European subsidiary of South Korea-based NXC, which invests in digital technologies. NXC also owns South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Korbit, and Nexon, a South Korean gaming company. 

STA, 27 August 2018 - The Slovenian-based bitcoin-mining marketplace NiceHash has so far managed to reimburse its clients 60% of some 4,700 bitcoins stolen in a hack last December, which at the time were worth some EUR 56m.