The Australian government will begin to use Bitcoin as regular money starting from July 1, and the cryptocurrency will begin “to be treated just like money” in the country. This official development was contained in the country’s 2017-2018 budget for Backing Innovation and FinTech, Cointelegraph wrote.
According to the budget summary, “the government will make it easier for new innovative digital currency businesses to operate in Australia,” and that starting “from 1 July 2017, purchases of digital currency will no longer be subject to general sales tax (GST)” twice.
What this means is that consumers of digital currencies will only pay GST once and not twice as it used to be. Before this time, users of digital currencies paid GST when they bought cryptocurrencies and when they converted them for goods and services. This double payment of GST on digital currencies has driven operators away from Australia since 2014 and it has stunted the growth of local banks in the country.
This unfortunate development has made the Australian digital currencies market to lag behind those of South Korea and Japan – two countries that manage more than half of the global Bitcoin exchange market. But with this new financial innovation, the Australian government is set to protect Bitcoin and other digital currencies businesses by allowing local banks to trade in them and offer exchanges for them.
Since local banks will now offer an exchange platform for trading Bitcoin and other digital currencies in the country, Australia is set to overhaul its economy by promoting physical and internet businesses to their full potentials. And the removal of double GST taxation on digital currencies will go a long way to drive the new financial technology in the country. To this extent, local banks and cryptocurrency operators will have a level playing ground for financial businesses in Australia.