Japan: Bitcoin not a currency, ‘but taxable’

The ruling party in Japan, the Liberal Democrats, have formed an investigative committee that will look into Bitcoin from a governmental perspective, the party said in a statement.

The committee’s first comments are that Bitcoin transactions should be “subject to taxation,” opening up a possible avenue to establish regulation. The Japanese government also said banks would not have license to broker Bitcoin.

“As a matter of common sense, if there are transactions and subsequent gains, it is natural ... for the finance ministry to consider how it can impose taxes,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Friday.

All of these are simply first steps for a country that has thus far been pretty mum on the Bitcoin question. But after consecutive media circuses have put Japan right in the middle of the Bitcoin universe, as Quartz put it, the government appears to have been compelled to act.