The SFTA publishes annually a list of exchange rates of foreign currencies and cryptocurrencies per end of the year. For the year 2022, more than 40 of well-known cryptocurrencies have been published, such as Bitcoin (BTC) (CHF 15,345.739085), Ethereum (ETH) (CHF 1,109.251223), Litecoin (LTC) (CHF 62.841485) or Ripple (XRP) (CHF 0.316784). Owner of cryptocurrencies must use these rates for the declaration in their tax declaration (in the canton of Zug in the securities section). If a cryptocurrency cannot be found in the list of the SFTA, one may use https://coinmarketcap.com/. In the event that the tax authorities have questions about the number of cryptocurrencies, taxpayers can usually provide a copy of their “digital wallet” showing the number of the respective cryptocurrencies.
If an individual is trading professionally with cryptocurrencies they will be qualified as business assets. In this case, the book values shown in the balance sheet are of relevance for tax purposes. Taxpayers should therefore verify whether their cryptocurrencies are qualified as private assets or business assets. The qualification as business assets might have significant income tax consequences.
Asset-backed-tokens, such as debt-, equity- or participation tokens, and utility tokens are usually valued according to their year-end exchange rates on crypto exchanges (in case of a listing) or – if no such exchange rates are available – according to the respective original purchase prices.
The complete list of the year-end exchange rates 2022 published by the Swiss Federal Tax Administration is available here:
https://www.ictax.admin.ch/extern/de.html#/ratelist/2022
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