Norway has said that the virtual currency Bitcoin is not real money. The country will instead treat Bitcoins as an asset and charge a capital gains tax. Since Bitcoins came on the scene in 2008, more and more nations are taking an official stance on the software.
Hans Christian Holte, director general of taxation in Norway, said: “Bitcoins don’t fall under the usual definition of money or currency. We’ve done some assessments on what’s the right and sound way to handle this in the tax system.”
Paul Ehling, associate professor in the department of financial economics at the BI Norwegian Business School, said: “Currency is any agreed upon means of exchanges of goods and services, so you could have some small stones, as used in history, and if it’s accepted by a sufficiently large population, then that’s enough. These days we do mean that a much larger group of people is willing to exchange goods or services for this currency.”
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