TL;DR:
- German digital asset investors sustained estimated gains of 47.3 billion euros during the 2024 period.
- The rejected proposal from the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen party sought to raise up to 11.4 billion euros annually through new taxes.
- Four parliamentary factions within the Finance Committee presented independent objections based on administrative complexity and tax fairness.
Germany’s Finance Committee rejected the legal initiative to eliminate the historic crypto tax exemption, maintaining the current regulatory framework that benefits long-term investors.
The parliamentary decision halts the bill presented by the Green party caucus (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen). This proposal aimed to tax capital gains on digital assets regardless of their holding time. Under current German legislation, sales of Bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto assets remain exempt from income tax if the positions are held for a period exceeding 12 months.
Political disagreement over tax reform
The center-right CDU/CSU bloc led the technical opposition to the measure under arguments of proportionality and legal symmetry. Spokespersons for this faction explained that the regulatory change would create unfair tax asymmetries compared to other traditional stores of value, such as precious metals and foreign currencies, which enjoy identical exemption rules.
On the other hand, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party faction rejected the reform from a general macroeconomic perspective. Its representatives pointed out that the German state must prioritize reducing public spending and simplifying taxes, rather than seeking to expand collection mechanisms on emerging technological sectors.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) decided to wait for the legislative debate. Although in theory it agrees with the need to regulate sector returns, its members chose to abstain from supporting partial texts. According to internal sources, the party prefers to wait for Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil to introduce his own unified reform package for the digital financial ecosystem.
Even the Left (Die Linke), the only group that supported the Greens’ proposal, acknowledged that the drafting of the bill had technical flaws. Data shared by the organization indicates that the proposed design suffered from enormous bureaucratic complexity and omitted a clear limit for offsetting trading losses, a loophole that could considerably dilute net fiscal benefits for the State.
The weight of 2024 market data
The Greens’ financial justification relied on academic research published in March 2026 by the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center. This study estimated that the proposed tax modifications could inject close to 11.4 billion euros annually in additional revenue into the public treasury.
According to the educational institution’s report, cryptocurrency investors within Germany consolidated approximately 47.3 billion euros in realized gains throughout the 2024 fiscal year. The research center’s metrics indicate that nearly two-thirds of those total returns completely legally evaded the tax burden thanks to compliance with the minimum one-year holding period.
Despite the volume of capital identified, the Finance Committee determined that collection projections did not justify the risk of destabilizing the country’s digital competitiveness. Germany’s 12-month tax infrastructure will remain unchanged in the short term, serving as a foundation while the market adapts to the new transparency mandates brought by the implementation of the European MiCA regulations.
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