Study claims 99.5% of crypto investors did not pay taxes in 2022
Swedish crypto tax firm Divly has released a new report that estimates that only 0.53% of crypto investors globally paid tax on their crypto in 2022 — however tax experts have cast doubt on the figures and methodology.
The Divly report published on April 5 came up with the estimate after analyzing the relationship between the number of people who declared cryptocurrency in their tax returns, and the search volume for crypto tax-related keywords in various countries. It also used the number of crypto holders in each country according to Statista's Global Cryptocurrency Report in its calculations
The report estimates that Finland has the highest proportion of crypto investors who paid the required taxes on crypto in 2022 at 4.09%, with Australia following closely behind on 3.65% respectively.
The United States ranked 10th on the list, with an estimated 1.62%, meanwhile, India, Indonesia and Philippines had the lowest rates of tax-paying crypto investors, with just 0.07%, 0.04% and 0.03% respectively.
The methodology used to arrive at the estimates is questionable. The report itself qualifies the results by noting that search volume data may not accurately reflect the actual number of crypto taxpayers, as not everyone who pays tax searches for crypto tax-related information online.
Another assumption in the methodology was that the number of searches related to crypto tax reporting did not vary across different countries. Additionally, it cautioned that there could be a potential bias towards countries with greater internet accessibility and more accurate search volume data.
Danny Talwar, global head of tax at crypto tax software Koinly, disputed the large portion of crypto investors not paying tax that the report suggests. He
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