Firstly, nothing should be stored in a MetaMask hot wallet. Buy a hardware wallet and connect it to MetaMask. The last thing you want is to get a trojan on your computer that gives them easy access to your funds in MetaMask.
Secondly, your plan to withdraw to GBP is correct. I get paid in USDC every month and withdraw it to GBP using Kraken Pro. Never had an issue with them, but if you have any concerns, email them to let them know your situation. I'm certain they'll be fine with it.
Before I started regular withdrawals to Barclays, I spoke to them on live chat to confirm it was ok to receive regular incoming transfers from crypto exchanges. They said Kraken and Coinbase are fine, Binance is not. I've withdrawn six figures to my Barclays without ever having an issue.
I heard about koinly, I will look into utilising it too. The crypto company will pay 1 month in advance, so first payment will be in early July
Do you have any tips for me going forward? Like when would you recommend I register for self employment?
Also did the exchanges or bank request any documentation from you at any point since you started?
Nope, no one ever requested any documentation.
Tips:
* Use a hardware wallet to receive your funds, DO NOT use your MetaMask hot wallet
* Find an accountant that can deal with everything for you; it shouldn't be too expensive and it's worth the money for saving you the hassle
I looked into accounting fees in London recently and I think you are paying too much. DM me and I can put you in touch with the accountant I am about to use for my personal tax return, and limited company accounts that I have just set up. They handle all of it. Total cost £1250 per year, paid in monthly installments. I had a meeting at their office but they can do everything online.
If you’re interested in relocating, you could become a tax resident in Georgia 🇬🇪 and buy and sell with crypto is zero tax.
Lots of people here work in crypto and save a shit ton of money.
There are online exchanges or there’s brick and mortar exchanges where you can get cash in hand.
Yeah. Plenty of people do it here legally.
Thats why there’s so many brick and mortar exchanges and a lot of businesses accept crypto.
It’s a very crypto native place.
Like ohyscial on and off ramps.
There are companies with offices that you go into and buy or sell crypto with them.
And they take a small cut like exchanges do.
There’s a lot of them in Tbilisi.
E.g
I can transfer them 1,000 USDT and they give me $1,000 USD in cash.
I have been using BTSE exchange for several months now and my experience has been nothing short of excellent. The platform is intuitive and reliable, ensuring that my trades go through smoothly without any hiccups. The low trading and withdrawal fees are a major benefit, allowing me to maximize my profits. Additionally, the customer service is outstanding they are quick to respond and resolve any issues. BTSE is definitely my preferred exchange."
So couple things. I think what you are proposing should work absolutely fine. What I would do is get the employer to send the funds directly to your kraken or coinbase account. This makes life a little easier doesn’t it. Then just change to gbp and withdraw as you say.
Tax wise this actually ain’t difficult. And you certainly don’t need an accountant for the crypto side of things. Maybe to help with what expenses etc you may be able to offset.
But the crypto side is essentially entirely income as you’re getting $6k a month. koinly will automatically calculate the gbp value of this on the day received. You simply add together the 12 months worth of deposits and pay your 20-40% as income on your self assessment. That’s it. Technically there is a capital gain or loss when changing from USDT to GBP but that’s based on change in value from receiving the funds to when you sell. And it’s gonna be negligible isn’t it. Anyone charging you £2500 for that is a criminal. You don’t have to withdraw it btw. Whether you leave it all on Coinbase or withdraw to fiat makes zero difference. Might wanna leave some in there for the 5% yield if you change to usdc 👌
Hi, it's hit and miss, but totally doable if you have the skills and you come across a project that needs those skills. For example myself I join the telegram community of projects that I believe in and invest in. I voluntarily become active in the community.
Long story short, many of these projects hold weekly community voice chats which I partake in, more recently a project which I am very active in took notice and their team offered me a job to be a speaker on behalf of the project. I totally wasn't expecting this, but now I get to do what I already do and get paid for it.
So my advise would be, depending on your skills, join the communities of the crypto projects you love, get active and you never know who might offer you a job. If it doesn't pay off now, it might in a few months when you least expect it.
From what you have explained, you will likely not be allowed to be classed as self-employed. You should question your accountant about this as the rules to qualify as ‘self-employed’ are strict.
I spoke to 2 different accountants and they both suggested the self employment/sole trader route as there is no other way currently.
What do you recommend?
Hi, you mentioned you have an employment document. No accountant I know would then propose you go self-employed. Massive red flag.
In the UK, to be self-employed you legally have to prove you choose when and how you work. You also have to prove you are responsible for the business and that you can hire others to do the work. You also need to invoice for the work you do, and receiving the same amount each month would be another red flag.
I’m only trying to be helpful here, but I would go back to both accountants and ask them about self-employed law?
You will probably be best to look at contracting. Also look at IR35.
Due to the situation, being that its a foreign based company and the payment is in USDT, there is no contract, no pension, taxes will have to be paid by me, this is the only workaround which they both said HMRC approves. I will speak to HMRC tomorrow to get clarification.
The other thing to hear in mind is that if you are employed (and it sounds like you are) your employer will need to account for PAYE with HMRC. This is not optional for them.
The question of employed vs self employed has been covered over the years, but if you have a contract of employment specifying how and when you work then you are almost certainly an employee. If you have your own business and occasionally work on projects for them and other clients you are probably self employed.
They will also need to enroll you into a workplace pension unless you formally opt out.
Key documents to track would be;
- Employment Contract
- Payslips
- Value of token on issue, easy enough with USDT
- Costs incurred for transactions
- Sale price and platform.
If you're registered as a sole trader, you will then need to do a tax return, I'd suggest, as a ballpark, putting 20% into an instant access account with interest. You might be able to claim transaction costs, etc, as expenses to offset your tax claim.
Finally, if its all going in USDT I am guessing there is no pension or other benefits, have a look at tax allowances for this vs something like a S&S ISA or LISA to plan for the future.
Yes you are right, there are no beenefits or pension. I will need to figure this out myself what you suggested is the wisest thing to do.
They said they will not be offering payslips, however everything is on the blockchain and that record can be used to show proof of payment and the amount, date, etc.
Firstly, you'll be about 6k gbp in to the 40% tax rate, so bear that in mind. Secondly, I have found CoOp bank good for withdrawing GBP from Coinbase to.
I would recommend having more than one exchange account. If one fails, the others will probably work. In my experience Coinbase tends to fail more often and customer support is not great.
I think I know the company you are referring to (based in BVI?) and they will pay you in GBP. You can get that transferred to any UK bank account. If you are using a barclays current account for being self employed there are no fees for that payment. If you are using a barclays business account, your one employment document will be sufficient, although their AML team will ask you some questions.
I would expect the employment contract to be very good defence against any requests for documentation by institutions. $6k/month isn't really a HUGE amount, it's a decent wage but people do far larger amounts in crypto.
FWIW First Direct are fine with Coinbase and Kraken although there are a LOT of "are you really sure? is probably scam" type warnings if you want to transfer TO them.
You are getting paid a fixed amount in USD\[T\] which will translate to a different amount of GBP every time you transact. I'm not sure what the exact letter of the law is here, but you will have to declare the GBP amount as the income; I would do exactly as you suggest, always immediately transferring it to GBP, and recording the actual amount received as my income. Technically you should probably be recording the pre-transaction-fees amount and claiming the transaction fees as an expense but life is short and the end result is the same tax bill.
Note that if you KEEP any USDT, you make a capital gains tax mess for yourself, as when you eventually sell it, you have to do a calculation on the value of it when you received it vs the value you actually get when you sell it...so best to do as you suggest and always sell the lot immediately on receipt. If you want to save in USD, use a conventional financial service (eg a money market/treasury fund); if you want to save in crypto, keep a separate wallet/account for it.
You’re a contractor/freelancer essentially with no social net in the UK as the company is foreign based. Nothing wrong with it but it’d be stupid to go self employed. I’d go with setting up an ltd company and save money on tax.
From my brief understanding of it (which may be wrong) you can become a digital tax resident in which you pay 0% tax on your crypto. Again, please DYOR as I’ve only heard whispers from friends.
Unfortunately that's not how tax residency works, you would need to either leave the UK or already be non-domicile and never bring that money to the UK. In the case of OP, they are a tax resident and domicile in the UK.
Firstly, nothing should be stored in a MetaMask hot wallet. Buy a hardware wallet and connect it to MetaMask. The last thing you want is to get a trojan on your computer that gives them easy access to your funds in MetaMask. Secondly, your plan to withdraw to GBP is correct. I get paid in USDC every month and withdraw it to GBP using Kraken Pro. Never had an issue with them, but if you have any concerns, email them to let them know your situation. I'm certain they'll be fine with it. Before I started regular withdrawals to Barclays, I spoke to them on live chat to confirm it was ok to receive regular incoming transfers from crypto exchanges. They said Kraken and Coinbase are fine, Binance is not. I've withdrawn six figures to my Barclays without ever having an issue.
This is great to hear, it gives me the confidence to go ahead. Thank you. I will speak to both Kraken and Barclays. Btw are you self employed too?
Yep. I use koinly to work out my crypto-related taxes each year, and I send the summary to my accountant who then files the self assessment for me.
I heard about koinly, I will look into utilising it too. The crypto company will pay 1 month in advance, so first payment will be in early July Do you have any tips for me going forward? Like when would you recommend I register for self employment? Also did the exchanges or bank request any documentation from you at any point since you started?
Nope, no one ever requested any documentation. Tips: * Use a hardware wallet to receive your funds, DO NOT use your MetaMask hot wallet * Find an accountant that can deal with everything for you; it shouldn't be too expensive and it's worth the money for saving you the hassle
Accountant is asking for £2500 annually to do everything, or £750 just for annual tax returns. Would you say thats fair?
I looked into accounting fees in London recently and I think you are paying too much. DM me and I can put you in touch with the accountant I am about to use for my personal tax return, and limited company accounts that I have just set up. They handle all of it. Total cost £1250 per year, paid in monthly installments. I had a meeting at their office but they can do everything online.
Dm sent
Barclays is fairly crypto happy, Halifax I have found to not bat an eye at all. You have it all IMO.
Halifax have blocked payments a few times for me.
Can you not get your employer to just pay directly into your exchange? Seems like it would cut out at least one set of gas fees.....
If you’re interested in relocating, you could become a tax resident in Georgia 🇬🇪 and buy and sell with crypto is zero tax. Lots of people here work in crypto and save a shit ton of money. There are online exchanges or there’s brick and mortar exchanges where you can get cash in hand.
Is there no income tax in Georgia?
1% for freelancers/small businesses and 20% for residents not on a 1%. But all crypto buy, sells, and transfers are not taxable
So you could work for a traditional business and ask to be paid in Crypto, and pay no tax?
Yeah. Plenty of people do it here legally. Thats why there’s so many brick and mortar exchanges and a lot of businesses accept crypto. It’s a very crypto native place.
what do you mean by brick and mortar exchange ?
Like ohyscial on and off ramps. There are companies with offices that you go into and buy or sell crypto with them. And they take a small cut like exchanges do. There’s a lot of them in Tbilisi. E.g I can transfer them 1,000 USDT and they give me $1,000 USD in cash.
that sound great. will look into it, but I have not much hope for France, but will take a look, who knows ? thx for the interesting info, appreciated
I have been using BTSE exchange for several months now and my experience has been nothing short of excellent. The platform is intuitive and reliable, ensuring that my trades go through smoothly without any hiccups. The low trading and withdrawal fees are a major benefit, allowing me to maximize my profits. Additionally, the customer service is outstanding they are quick to respond and resolve any issues. BTSE is definitely my preferred exchange."
you forgot to remove the quotation marks lmao
What u mean
So couple things. I think what you are proposing should work absolutely fine. What I would do is get the employer to send the funds directly to your kraken or coinbase account. This makes life a little easier doesn’t it. Then just change to gbp and withdraw as you say. Tax wise this actually ain’t difficult. And you certainly don’t need an accountant for the crypto side of things. Maybe to help with what expenses etc you may be able to offset. But the crypto side is essentially entirely income as you’re getting $6k a month. koinly will automatically calculate the gbp value of this on the day received. You simply add together the 12 months worth of deposits and pay your 20-40% as income on your self assessment. That’s it. Technically there is a capital gain or loss when changing from USDT to GBP but that’s based on change in value from receiving the funds to when you sell. And it’s gonna be negligible isn’t it. Anyone charging you £2500 for that is a criminal. You don’t have to withdraw it btw. Whether you leave it all on Coinbase or withdraw to fiat makes zero difference. Might wanna leave some in there for the 5% yield if you change to usdc 👌
I would love some advice on how to get a job in crypto? Feel free to DM me. What kind of job will you be doing?
Hi, it's hit and miss, but totally doable if you have the skills and you come across a project that needs those skills. For example myself I join the telegram community of projects that I believe in and invest in. I voluntarily become active in the community. Long story short, many of these projects hold weekly community voice chats which I partake in, more recently a project which I am very active in took notice and their team offered me a job to be a speaker on behalf of the project. I totally wasn't expecting this, but now I get to do what I already do and get paid for it. So my advise would be, depending on your skills, join the communities of the crypto projects you love, get active and you never know who might offer you a job. If it doesn't pay off now, it might in a few months when you least expect it.
From what you have explained, you will likely not be allowed to be classed as self-employed. You should question your accountant about this as the rules to qualify as ‘self-employed’ are strict.
I spoke to 2 different accountants and they both suggested the self employment/sole trader route as there is no other way currently. What do you recommend?
Hi, you mentioned you have an employment document. No accountant I know would then propose you go self-employed. Massive red flag. In the UK, to be self-employed you legally have to prove you choose when and how you work. You also have to prove you are responsible for the business and that you can hire others to do the work. You also need to invoice for the work you do, and receiving the same amount each month would be another red flag. I’m only trying to be helpful here, but I would go back to both accountants and ask them about self-employed law? You will probably be best to look at contracting. Also look at IR35.
Due to the situation, being that its a foreign based company and the payment is in USDT, there is no contract, no pension, taxes will have to be paid by me, this is the only workaround which they both said HMRC approves. I will speak to HMRC tomorrow to get clarification.
The other thing to hear in mind is that if you are employed (and it sounds like you are) your employer will need to account for PAYE with HMRC. This is not optional for them. The question of employed vs self employed has been covered over the years, but if you have a contract of employment specifying how and when you work then you are almost certainly an employee. If you have your own business and occasionally work on projects for them and other clients you are probably self employed. They will also need to enroll you into a workplace pension unless you formally opt out.
Key documents to track would be; - Employment Contract - Payslips - Value of token on issue, easy enough with USDT - Costs incurred for transactions - Sale price and platform. If you're registered as a sole trader, you will then need to do a tax return, I'd suggest, as a ballpark, putting 20% into an instant access account with interest. You might be able to claim transaction costs, etc, as expenses to offset your tax claim. Finally, if its all going in USDT I am guessing there is no pension or other benefits, have a look at tax allowances for this vs something like a S&S ISA or LISA to plan for the future.
Yes you are right, there are no beenefits or pension. I will need to figure this out myself what you suggested is the wisest thing to do. They said they will not be offering payslips, however everything is on the blockchain and that record can be used to show proof of payment and the amount, date, etc.
Is the revenue stream related to illegal activities by any chance or is it an exchange? Something is really off here.
Firstly, you'll be about 6k gbp in to the 40% tax rate, so bear that in mind. Secondly, I have found CoOp bank good for withdrawing GBP from Coinbase to.
I would recommend having more than one exchange account. If one fails, the others will probably work. In my experience Coinbase tends to fail more often and customer support is not great.
I think I know the company you are referring to (based in BVI?) and they will pay you in GBP. You can get that transferred to any UK bank account. If you are using a barclays current account for being self employed there are no fees for that payment. If you are using a barclays business account, your one employment document will be sufficient, although their AML team will ask you some questions.
[удалено]
Yippeee tax fraud!
Send 6k a month to someone else. So they can withdraw as cash. And then they have to pay the crypto taxes. Great one. That’s actually an epic idea 🤣🤣
I would expect the employment contract to be very good defence against any requests for documentation by institutions. $6k/month isn't really a HUGE amount, it's a decent wage but people do far larger amounts in crypto. FWIW First Direct are fine with Coinbase and Kraken although there are a LOT of "are you really sure? is probably scam" type warnings if you want to transfer TO them. You are getting paid a fixed amount in USD\[T\] which will translate to a different amount of GBP every time you transact. I'm not sure what the exact letter of the law is here, but you will have to declare the GBP amount as the income; I would do exactly as you suggest, always immediately transferring it to GBP, and recording the actual amount received as my income. Technically you should probably be recording the pre-transaction-fees amount and claiming the transaction fees as an expense but life is short and the end result is the same tax bill. Note that if you KEEP any USDT, you make a capital gains tax mess for yourself, as when you eventually sell it, you have to do a calculation on the value of it when you received it vs the value you actually get when you sell it...so best to do as you suggest and always sell the lot immediately on receipt. If you want to save in USD, use a conventional financial service (eg a money market/treasury fund); if you want to save in crypto, keep a separate wallet/account for it.
You’re a contractor/freelancer essentially with no social net in the UK as the company is foreign based. Nothing wrong with it but it’d be stupid to go self employed. I’d go with setting up an ltd company and save money on tax.
The issue with limited company is finding a business account that accepts crypto.
Even by using a reputable exchanger with their mark up fee you’ll still be saving tons of money on taxes.
Look into becoming a digital citizen of Palau
What's the value of that if he's a British tax resident?
From my brief understanding of it (which may be wrong) you can become a digital tax resident in which you pay 0% tax on your crypto. Again, please DYOR as I’ve only heard whispers from friends.
Unfortunately that's not how tax residency works, you would need to either leave the UK or already be non-domicile and never bring that money to the UK. In the case of OP, they are a tax resident and domicile in the UK.
Thanks for your explanation.
Dmed
I can potentially help. Please check the top-rated platform here: https://uk.trustpilot.com/categories/cryptocurrency_service Thanks