I do think these days those of us in crypto especially living in South Africa have to tread very carefully not to bring to much attention to ourselves. The SA Government is desperate to find more revenue and why they have increased VAT by 1%.
USAID dried up and we all know this was not exactly all ending up at the right places and government officials were definitely benefiting. The next obvious step is the tax man is going to be looking at other areas they can exploit and crypto with us being in the 4th year of the cycle is an obvious prime candidate.
They say holding crypto is tax fee which I find hard to believe as I am holding crypto that is staked and is earning daily rewards. I will run with this narrative for now, but I a under no illusion this is indeed correct. The crypto you are earning daily is taxable at a 28% rate and those in SA need to be well aware of this.
The depositing and withdrawing red flag for the South African revenue Services is R10K which is roughly $500. I am not certain if this is per transaction or over a 12 month period. This is why I do not use the obvious routes and have always remained in the shadows.
My son was mining Ethereum up until recently basically paying for his petrol money each month and I advised him to keep on mining, but not to keep on selling as he is putting a target on his back. If he needs to sell I have another route for him that does not leave a trail. I know others also sell their crypto and as long as you are aware every transaction is monitored if you use local exchanges in SA. I would say after this Binance advert Binance has a deal with SARS (South African Revenue Services) and all data is handed over.
I have never sold any crypto for FIAT and do not intend to for some time until I have all my off ramps sorted out which are definitely not local knowing the tax rates vary between 18% then jumping to 28% rising up to 40%. It all depends if you are trading or holding which then triggers capital gains tax.
Guaranteed there will be some sort of announcement later this year by SARS once the crypto prices start to rise and has caught their full attention. With the prices being so low currently they do not seem that interested and things are generally quiet, but as we know that can change within a few green weeks.
My advice is if you have to sell your crypto then you have no choice, but it should be a last resort. If you are selling at these prices then I guess the situation would have to be really desperate to do so, but think twice as you are not remaining under the radar. If you are going to sell at least make it worth your while and get the benefits later this year which could be 5 -10 x more than what the values we see right now. Why settle for a slice of cake when you can have a whole cake in 6 months time. My son understands this as he had no idea even where we are in the current cycle and that a crypto cycle was even real.