Electronic money in Belarus: April theses

Recently, the Belarusian portal tut.by reflected on the present and future of electronic money in the country. In the studio, where they discussed the subject, they invited Natalia Podgornaya, head of the tax control department for business activities of citizens of the Inspectorate of the Ministry of Taxes and Duties in Minsk (the third from the left). As a freelancer, it was interesting for me to find out how much the tax authorities follow the freelancers, and how banks “merge” information about clients' electronic accounts into the tax and state control committee. I wanted to bring all the information that I had gathered into a brief abstract look under a habrakat - all of a sudden it would help someone.

1. Do not shine the e-wallet number - both the tax and state control committee have the right to request information from the bank about a specific wallet. And until the written permission of these bodies, the funds in the wallet are frozen. Placing your wallet number in a freelance ad is generally nonsense. On the other hand, this means that the tax does not totally follow all e-wallets - there are not enough resources.
2. The bank starts to keep a close eye on your wallet if the income on it has exceeded 1000 basic values ​​(100 million BYR) - this amount, equivalent to 12,000 US dollars, is quite normal for a Belarusian freelancer. For the year, a freelancer may well not exceed this threshold.
3. Belarusian tax authorities have the right to control e-wallets only in the national currency - this immediately results in a gray currency cashing scheme, which was voiced by Ivan Kuten, head of the electronic money department of Tekhnobank OJSC: a freelancer earns income abroad in currency without changing to the Belarusian electronic money. It is impossible to track this, but there are also disadvantages - the commission for such a cashing is likely to be more. Now for cash out, for example, webmoney in Belarus, they will charge you about 3%.
4. There are incomes that are not taxable - in particular, these are gifts from people who are not your close relatives. Amount not exceeding 33 100 000 BYR received as a gift is not taxed. I just want to invite employers to write in the appointment of the payment "Happy Birthday".

As a summary, I wanted to tell a real story from the practice of the tax service of one of the Belarusian regional centers. Once there came a girl who dreamed of paying taxes on her income abroad through webmoney. The entire department, where she came, persuaded the girl to quietly leave with his income, because no one knew what to do with this electronic money. Since then, the situation has changed, the tax code has been adapted, but the tax still cannot follow all the freelancers. Therefore, to pay tax on your income or not - only your business. If you do everything “without noise and dust”, then you probably won't have to deal with the tax.