Russia Has No Plans to Tax Cryptocurrencies

03.07.2017

Russian parliament plans to review a bill that legalizes cryptocurrencies this September. According to Elina Sidorenko, the head of the parliament’s working group of cryptocurrencies, the bill, however, does not include provisions as to tax regulation of virtual money.

Speaking at a blockchain meetup in Kazan, she said that legal development of cryptocurrencies and emergence of regulated exchanges would promote convertibility of Ruble. She also noted that any taxation would scare market players away.

“We could introduce taxation later, but not now,” she said.

If the bill is passed without amendments, law enforcement won’t oppress miners as well –– as long as they don’t exchange digital currencies for fiat.

Sidorenko noted that the legalization bill should protect market players in the first place. In the future, the government will regulate ICO and smart contracts. The bill does not attempt to control blockchain, even though the Russian government has some plans to introduce the technology to state ledgers and medical services.

“Blockchain is a technology that shall not be regulated in any case. Regulating a technology means excluding its future development. Blockchain is at the active development phase, and if we introduce any regulation now, we’ll just hamstring the people who work in the industry. The main thing for us is to introduce some guarantees of freedom for people involved in the turnover of blockchain products,” Sidorenko said.

Earlier she also stated that blockchain-based products have to be legalized, even though the technology itself has to remain beyond any regulation.

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Tags: regulation, Russia, taxes