Hello 👋,
The tax regime for cryptos is not clearly defined in Belgium and is aligned with existing tax regimes. The issue of airdrop is unclear. Waltio adopts the prudent solution and offers you here the majority legal interpretation of Belgian law.
Gains received from an airdrop and the sale of this amount may or may not be taxable transactions depending on the situation and may be taxed in different ways.
Let's look at the different hypotheses 👇
✅ Non-taxable airdrop
By general interpretation, it's recognised that aridrop gains are not taxable gains, their receipt will not be taxable if the recipient didn't know that they were going to receive an airdrop.
Example:
You receive an airdrop of 1000 BAT worth 200 euros.
You didn't know that you were going to receive this airdrop and/or you did not have to take any specific action to obtain it.
The amount of your airdrop will not be taxable either on collection or on sale.
💡 For simplicity, Waltio defaults to airdrop earnings not being subject to tax. They are neither considered as interest received at the time of receipt nor as taxable on sale.
⛔️ Taxable airdrop
An airdrop may be taxable if the recipient was induced to perform certain actions to obtain it. In this case, it can be considered that there was a speculative intent and the transaction may be taxable.
Example:
You receive an airdrop of 1000 BAT worth 200 euros.
To receive it, you had to use a protocol or perform certain actions (publication on networks, advertising, etc.).
In this case, the amount of your airdrop could be taxable upon receipt as interest (regardless of your profile and even if you are considered a "good father" see article on staking gains, farming ...) and at the time of transfer (if you have a speculative profile).
If you are in this situation, it would be more prudent to consider airdrop gains as taxable.
💡 Regardless of the situation, your airdrop gain will always be included in the method of calculating your taxable gains via the FiFO method in Belgium.
So, if you receive an airdrop DOT but you already owned DOT that you had purchased before the receipt, if you sell the amount of the airdrop gain, it will always be the first quantity purchased that is sold first.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us via the chat just below right! 💬
Waltio team