Income tax – salary and wages paid in cryptoassets

This ruling considers when employee remuneration paid in cryptoassets will be a “PAYE income payment” for income tax purposes under s RD 3 for which the payer of the cryptoassets will have PAYE obligation.

This item replaces BR Pub 21/01: Income tax - salary and wages paid in crypto-assets. There have been no changes to the previous ruling.

Tax Information Bulletin - Vol 35 No 6, July 2023

Legislative References

Income Tax Act 2007 – ss CE 1, CE 7, CX 2, CX 4, RD 3, RD 5, RD 6, RD 7, YA 1 definitions of “amount” and “salary or wages”
Legislation Act 2019 – s 11

Case References

Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd v Commissioners of Customs and Excise (1992) VATTR 44
Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Applied Design Development Pty Ltd (in liq) 2002 ATC 4,193
Goodfellow v The Commissioners (1986) VATTR 119
Heaton v Bell [1970] AC 728
R v Misic [2001] 3 NZLR 1
R v Walsh [2007] 1 NZLR 738
R v Walsh [2007] 2 NZLR 109
Stagg v IRC [1959] NZLR 1252
Watts v MNR 61 DTC 592

BR Pub 23/04: Income tax – salary and wages paid in cryptoassets

pdf - 491.89 KB - 25 pages

Related Publications

Title	Type	Date
Income tax – bonuses paid in cryptoassets	Rulings	May 2023
Income tax – employer issued cryptoassets provided to an employee	Rulings	May 2023
Income tax – application of the employee share scheme rules to employer issued cryptoassets provided to an employee	Rulings	May 2023

Reference

BR Pub 23/04

Issued

15 May 2023

Start

02 Dec 2022

End

30 Nov 2027