Today we hear the news of another Australian crypto-currency exchange, Living Room of Satoshi, shutting down because of the potential effects of the Australian Tax Office's draft ruling on sales tax with regard to crypto-currencies.

Essentially, the ruling is that Bitcoin is not money and so the selling of Bitcoin is treated as supply of goods/services, therefore taxable.

The effect of the ruling for the average consumer is that purchasing coins from a GST registered exchange costs an extra 10%. Whereas, when a spending a coin, despite being a capital asset, they can effectively ignore any gains if "the cost of the bitcoin is $10,000 or less."

Living Room of Satoshi's shutdown follows CoinJar's recent change in policy from 3rd October to charge GST on all consumer Bitcoin purchases.

It brings into light the inconsistent global interpretation of Bitcoin and how to tax this new form of currency.

For instance, the UK's tax office had reversed a similar decision in March to charge sales tax, VAT, on crypto-currency purchases.

Both Belgium and Spain recently confirmed trading is exempt from VAT, whereas in Poland and Estonia it is subject to VAT.

Iceland has banned purchasing crypto-currencies entirely using their króna.

However, all EU countries may have to harmonize depending on the outcome of the legislative action from a case brought by the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court to the EU Court of Justice asking for clarification on VAT treatment.

At the beginning of 2014 the US IRS was urged to make a statement, so released their guidance in March classifying crypto-currencies as property and subject to capital gains taxes.

Yet whilst all these tax decisions are being made, the ecosystem continues to expand seemingly unabated. Circle opened its doors with the ability to purchase Bitcoin using debit and credit cards - and so a cheaper alternative for consumers in Australian and even some Europeans. Coinbase also announced its expansion into 13 more countries (now 19 countries in total). Even PayPal, who have always considered themselves innovators in payment methods, have partnered with three Bitcoin payment processors, BitPay, Coinbase and BitGo, to use Bitcoin.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2014 annual meeting has also discussed Bitcoin and its technology. Opinions surrounding crypto-currencies are generally balanced, with Banorte saying "we observed a much more constructive assessment of these around its operational aspects to build more secure and cheaper-to-use payments systems."

The world of taxation is spinning around crypto-currencies, and it isn't quite clear yet where it will stop.