Israeli tax authorities are pursuing two Non-Fungible Token (NFT) creators who allegedly failed to declare approximately $2.2 million in income. News of the investigation follows the recent arrest of a Tel Aviv graphic designer accused of similar crimes.
Thousands of “Western Wall NFTs” were allegedly sold without tax declarations
Israeli tax authorities are investigating twoNFTcreators in Jerusalem who failed to report the millions of U.S. dollars in revenue they received from the sale of their digital works. The tokens they offered were based on 3D scans of stones from the Western Wall.
Both Avraham Cohen and Antony Polak owned a website called Holyrocknft.com through which they sold NFTs, the Jerusalem Post reported Sunday. The platform claims to “connect the business world and technological advances to Jewish faith and spirit.”
Investigators were able to establish that since 2021, two Israelis sold 1,700 digital works for 620ETH. At the rate at the time of the transactions, this is equivalent to about 8 million shekels (about $2.2 million). The tax office considers these revenues as business income, but the two did not declare them.
Some of the funds were transferred between different wallets, further raising suspicions of criminal activity. Nevertheless, the Jerusalem court judge released the suspects under certain conditions, including handing over control of the ether wallet.
In addition, according to the project’s website, it has agreed to suspend the sale of Holy Rocks NFT until the legal process is completed.”
“However, we assure you that all other activities planned in the community will continue as planned,” said the team behind the organization.
A week ago, a graphic designer from Tel Aviv who was creating tokenized digital art failed to report the proceeds of 3 million shekels from a sale on the NFT marketplace Oppensea, as well as 30 Ethereum-based tokens he received as payment, and was arrested for other He was arrested for converting the 30 Ethereum-based tokens he received as payment into other currencies.
Crypto assets in Israel are not yet comprehensively regulated. The country’s public stock exchange recently proposed rules allowing some customers to trade, and the Bank of Israel has issued recommendations to regulate and supervise stablecoin-related activities.
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