A petition seeking to preserve Germany's one-year tax-free holding period for Bitcoin has reached the Bundestag's petitions committee, which has scheduled a public hearing for 12 October. The timing is tight: the federal cabinet is due to discuss the government's proposed reform of crypto taxation just two days later, on 14 October.

The petition, backed by the initiative ProHaltefrist, gathered 44,439 signatures, well above the 30,000-vote quorum required to trigger a hearing. According to the brief, that threshold was reached in about one day after public co-signing began.

What the draft bill proposes

The Federal Finance Ministry published its draft bill, known as a Referentenentwurf, on 30 September. Under the proposal, gains from what the ministry terms "Tauschkryptowerten" — exchange-traded crypto assets such as Bitcoin — would be treated as income from capital assets (Einkünfte aus Kapitalvermögen). That reclassification would remove the current rule under which gains on crypto held for more than one year are exempt from tax for newly acquired assets.

The draft does include a grandfathering clause: crypto assets acquired before 1 January 2027 would retain the existing protection, meaning the one-year exemption would still apply to holdings purchased up to that date.

Political reaction

Fritz Güntzler, finanzpolitischer Sprecher of the CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion, had said in May that a tightening of crypto taxation was not part of the coalition agreement. "Eine Verschärfung der Krypto-Besteuerung ist im Koalitionsvertrag nicht vereinbart," he said at the time.

Nicole Nowak, initiator of ProHaltefrist, pointed to that earlier assurance in pressing her case. "Wenn Abgeordnete und der finanzpolitische Sprecher der Union den Bürgern schriftlich erklären, dass es keinen Anlass für eine Änderung gibt und eine solche Verschärfung nicht im Koalitionsvertrag vereinbart wurde, dann muss sich Politik an diesen Aussagen messen lassen," she said.

Nowak also argued that long-term holders deserve legal certainty. "Viele Anleger haben ihre langfristige Vermögensplanung auf Grundlage der bestehenden Rechtslage getroffen. Für sie ist die Frage des Vertrauensschutzes nicht abstrakt, sondern ganz konkret," she said, adding that the distinction between long-term holders and short-term speculators should not be discarded without explanation: "Wer Bitcoin über Jahre hält, handelt wirtschaftlich anders als jemand, der kurzfristig auf Kursbewegungen spekuliert. Wenn diese Differenzierung abgeschafft werden soll, muss die Politik nachvollziehbar erklären, warum."

The petitions committee hearing on 12 October will give lawmakers a chance to question the proposal's backers and critics before the cabinet takes up the broader reform two days later.