CoinJar, Australia’s well-known digital currency services company, announced on Monday that they’ve relocated their company headquarters to London’s financial district in a move that hopes to expand the company’s operations beyond the land down under.
In the announcement — made on the company’s blog — CoinJar says they’re official incorporated as a company from the United Kingdom (under the name CoinJar UK Limited), but they aren’t forgetting about their client base back in Australia.
CoinJar is maintaining a presence in Melbourne, “and will continue focusing on the things that have defined us such as facilitating meetup groups, sharing knowledge and highlighting our amazing customers.”
Failed Australian policy
If you’re wondering why CoinJar has decided to move their home base to the United Kingdom, you have to understand a major issue they’ve encountered thanks to recent Australian policy.
Specifically, a recent guidance from the Australian Tax Office (ATO) mandated that a so-called goods and services tax (GST) would be applicable on digital currency transactions.
For CoinJar customers, that meant a 10 percent tax would be applicable on the buying and selling of bitcoin using the service (in compliance with the aforementioned guidance), which certainly wasn’t ideal.
And while the GST on bitcoin transactions wasn’t necessarily the fault of CoinJar, it’s not difficult to see that customers would take their business elsewhere.
No more GST on CoinJar transactions
The move to the United Kingdom now means that CoinJar customers are not subject to the 10 percent GST, which is good news all around, it seems. The company writes:
[blockquote style=”2″]Aside from catalysing CoinJar’s growth, the UK relocation will mean CoinJar customers will no longer be subject to 10 per cent GST (Goods and Services Tax) when they buy bitcoin using our services. HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) in the UK exempts digital currency trading from value added tax (VAT), so new and existing CoinJar customers will not be levied any additional taxes. The move coincides with a revamp of our online wallet service, which is open to international users.[/blockquote]
Do you think the move will make the Australian Tax Office reconsider their stance on GST on bitcoin transactions? Further, do you think more companies will follow suit?