I have a friend (genuinely—this isn’t me) who invested about £700 in Bitcoin with im-bitcoin.org. It’s now worth £8300, and in order to cash it out, they are asking her to pay £1600 in capital gains tax.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Sounds like a scam to me. Yes, you have to pay UK CGT on crypto profits but an exchange taking it from you rather than deducting it from the transaction.
Grateful in advance for any help.
I agree, it does sound dodgy.
She will have a capital gains tax allowance, I believe this year it’s £3000, had she done it just over a week ago she’d have had a £6000 allowance.
So, how does the exchange know how much of her allowance she has used, to calculate the tax???
I thought she would need to declare the gain on her self assessment.
Yeah, thats what I figured too. Also she only invested the £700 a few weeks back, so there is no way that has gone up by over 10 times. BTC spot price wasn’t much different 2-3 weeks ago than it is today.
Thanks.
This all sounds a bit fishy, who said it was worth £8300 now.
BTC is about the same price it was a month ago, and what is im-bitcoin, the link 403’s
Are they asking her to pay prior to withdrawal, or from the proceeds? I bet its prior to withdrawal, and there’s your scam, they’ll never pay out.
Yes, it does sound fishy. They are asking for funds before releasing the money. The money which is almost certainly fake.
Scam written all over it, she’s probably lost the £700 as well.
Tell them to take the £1600 from the £8300 and payout the remaining £6700.
Ive never heard of this before.
Sure the exchanges will give data to hmrc.
But you file yourself or via accoutant, you then pay whats owed, direct to hmrc.
Being as cgt takes into account wages and other profits/ losses i have no faith an exchange would even attempt to calc it, they cant, they dont have that info.
Edit -
If soneone has contacted them saying the coin was lost / recovered / forgotten then thats a flat out scam where they ask for cash to process it and your out of pocket for nowt.
Sites not even https
Tell your friend to use a well establushed exchange.
Bircoin.org also not https has always been a site to get wallets.
Hi, this website is a scam, please report it to Action Fraud and FCA. They are asking me to pay tax before I can withdraw the assets, the money I’ve invested is gone! Tell you friend to report them. It’s a scam
Please tell me how your friend got that website details before sent the money to them? Has she/he met someone online that recommended this website? Please let me know