“The federal minister for finance and vice chancellor, Michael Spindelegger, reiterated that bitcoin is not a financial instrument (that is, a tradable asset), echoing the position of the country’s markets regulator, the Financial Market Authority. The federal minister for science, research and economy, Reinhold Mitterlehner, however made reference to a German policy recognising bitcoin as a ‘unit of account’ and requiring commercial bitcoin transactions to gain permission from the German financial markets regulator. ‘The two ministries contradict each other, so there is no [clear] way to interpret [the guidance],’ said Peter Šurda, an Austrian economist who studies bitcoin.”
http://www.coindesk.com/austria-offers-contradictory-guidance-bitcoins-financial-status/