Prowling the IRS, Hidden by the Federal Tax Service: how do the Russian and US tax services deal with crypto currency traders
The publication Froklog noted that on November 29 in the help system “Consultant Plus” a letter of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation appeared explaining the attitude of the tax department to cryptocurrency. The text of the letter, if retelling in human language, is based on the principle "I have two news."
Good: in the legislation of the Russian Federation there are no such concepts as a money surrogate, cryptocurrency, virtual currency, and therefore there is also no prohibition on conducting by Russian citizens and organizations of operations using cryptocurrency.
')
And bad: the use of cryptocurrency in transactions is the basis for considering whether to classify such transactions as money laundering or terrorist financing transactions.
And a bonus: the letter finally closes the debate that has rattled some time ago on whether Bitcoin is a surrogate, which is prohibited in our country. No, it's not.
By the time this news coincided with the unfolding in the US judicial drama with the participation of the local tax service IRS and the largest stock exchange cryptocurrency Coinbase. In short, the American tax authorities require access to the transaction history of the exchange for two years: from December 31, 2013 to December 31, 2015.
The latest news from this front came the day before yesterday: on November 30, a federal judge confirmed the IRS right to request such information from Coinbase. The exchange responds to this that it will fight for the privacy of its American users - and fight off every request in court. However, this is more like a good face on a bad game - they may be able to delay the issuance of data requested by the IRS in this way, but not cancel it in principle.
In Russia, events are still developing much more slowly, but soon no less important news awaits us. On December 15, a meeting of the interdepartmental working group on cryptocurrencies will be held, at which two concepts of the development of legislation on cryptocurrencies, defining a crypt either as a financial instrument - or as a cash asset - will be presented to representatives of relevant ministries. According to the idea, according to its results (however, it is not clear at what exact time frame) it will be decided which direction to go further in drafting the law on cryptocurrencies.
According to Forklog, head of the working group, professor of criminal law at MGIMO Elina Sidorenko said that a working group meeting would be held in December of this year, stressed that Russia is now at the forefront of developing such legislation, if only because this issue is already in the State Duma . Therefore, perhaps, Russia may be the first country to adopt a law on the legal regulation of cryptocurrencies.
Contagious optimism, of course - it is not clear just why the working group on cryptocurrency is headed by a professor in the Department of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Criminalistics ? How bad is this badge from the point of view of the future of cryptocurrencies, which, it seems, to ban in Russia finally changed their minds - but they can still try to regulate? It requires a small philosophical digression.
Have you ever noticed how falsely the phrase “I pay my taxes for this” sounds on the lips of a Russian person? The problem is that not so often we pay taxes ourselves - they usually pay for us: employers, sellers and suppliers of goods and services that we use, etc. The number of individual entrepreneurs in Russia is slightly less than 4 million, the number of businesses operating and paying taxes is about 2 million more. Consequently, out of 76 million of working-age population about 70 million never in their lives have paid a single tax - this is always it was the concern of the accountants of their employers. Compare with the same America, from the films of which this expression came to us: out of 243 million Americans, 122 million each year submit a declaration and pay income tax — every second adult in America, one third of the country's population. In our case, this would be equivalent to 55 million independent income tax payers.
In general, with "I pay" is more or less clear. The absolute majority of working Russians do not control the payment of taxes and contributions from their main salary. Who pays, pays for what - remains out of focus of their attention, as if being a problem of their employers.
Let's deal with "for it." Here I can recommend extremely curious calculations , which, in order not to read the entire post, lead to a simple conclusion: up to 90% of federal budget revenues are commodity rents received in different ways. And only 10 percent left - taxes proper, paid by citizens. Thus, when we say to the state or its specific representatives “We pay our taxes for this,” our voice treacherously trembles, because even without these calculations on an intuitive level, we perfectly understand that a) we do not pay, b) we don’t pay
However, even here there is a spoon of honey: these same calculations mean that the state as a whole is not too interested in taxes from physical persons. Of course, if you are a big business, then it’s better not to have problems with cryptocurrency at all: the guys in black will happily come up with the questions “And who finances terrorism here and launders illegal proceeds, eh?” Ordinary users will hardly get into the field From the point of view of the tax authorities, regardless of what laws we will have to pass. Firstly, the scale is not the same. And secondly, our tax system has fewer opportunities than the IRS - neither Coinbase nor any other stock exchange in any other country of the world will dare, after all, ignore the decision of the American court. But the Russian courts can only reach the Russian stock exchanges. Ukrainian exchangers, which are now quite a lot, they, for example, is too tough. In the worst case, they will be “blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation”.
Simple logic here suggests that there is no sense in trying to tightly regulate an area that is not fully controlled. In the worst case, Russia will simply turn out to be a cryptocurrency Wild West, instead of being proud of the status of the first country to adopt a law on the legal regulation of cryptocurrency. Therefore, what would the working group come in the future, let's hope that they have enough state wisdom to approach the regulation of cryptocurrencies as liberal as possible.
PS To whom the war - and to whom the mother is native: news from the United States should raise the rate of anonymous DASH cryptocurrency, the mining of which is already available in Hashflare among the others cryptocurrency.
Good: in the legislation of the Russian Federation there are no such concepts as a money surrogate, cryptocurrency, virtual currency, and therefore there is also no prohibition on conducting by Russian citizens and organizations of operations using cryptocurrency.
')
And bad: the use of cryptocurrency in transactions is the basis for considering whether to classify such transactions as money laundering or terrorist financing transactions.
And a bonus: the letter finally closes the debate that has rattled some time ago on whether Bitcoin is a surrogate, which is prohibited in our country. No, it's not.
IRS vs Coinbase
By the time this news coincided with the unfolding in the US judicial drama with the participation of the local tax service IRS and the largest stock exchange cryptocurrency Coinbase. In short, the American tax authorities require access to the transaction history of the exchange for two years: from December 31, 2013 to December 31, 2015.
The latest news from this front came the day before yesterday: on November 30, a federal judge confirmed the IRS right to request such information from Coinbase. The exchange responds to this that it will fight for the privacy of its American users - and fight off every request in court. However, this is more like a good face on a bad game - they may be able to delay the issuance of data requested by the IRS in this way, but not cancel it in principle.
Returning to our birches
In Russia, events are still developing much more slowly, but soon no less important news awaits us. On December 15, a meeting of the interdepartmental working group on cryptocurrencies will be held, at which two concepts of the development of legislation on cryptocurrencies, defining a crypt either as a financial instrument - or as a cash asset - will be presented to representatives of relevant ministries. According to the idea, according to its results (however, it is not clear at what exact time frame) it will be decided which direction to go further in drafting the law on cryptocurrencies.
According to Forklog, head of the working group, professor of criminal law at MGIMO Elina Sidorenko said that a working group meeting would be held in December of this year, stressed that Russia is now at the forefront of developing such legislation, if only because this issue is already in the State Duma . Therefore, perhaps, Russia may be the first country to adopt a law on the legal regulation of cryptocurrencies.
Contagious optimism, of course - it is not clear just why the working group on cryptocurrency is headed by a professor in the Department of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Criminalistics ? How bad is this badge from the point of view of the future of cryptocurrencies, which, it seems, to ban in Russia finally changed their minds - but they can still try to regulate? It requires a small philosophical digression.
Lyrical digression
Have you ever noticed how falsely the phrase “I pay my taxes for this” sounds on the lips of a Russian person? The problem is that not so often we pay taxes ourselves - they usually pay for us: employers, sellers and suppliers of goods and services that we use, etc. The number of individual entrepreneurs in Russia is slightly less than 4 million, the number of businesses operating and paying taxes is about 2 million more. Consequently, out of 76 million of working-age population about 70 million never in their lives have paid a single tax - this is always it was the concern of the accountants of their employers. Compare with the same America, from the films of which this expression came to us: out of 243 million Americans, 122 million each year submit a declaration and pay income tax — every second adult in America, one third of the country's population. In our case, this would be equivalent to 55 million independent income tax payers.
In general, with "I pay" is more or less clear. The absolute majority of working Russians do not control the payment of taxes and contributions from their main salary. Who pays, pays for what - remains out of focus of their attention, as if being a problem of their employers.
Let's deal with "for it." Here I can recommend extremely curious calculations , which, in order not to read the entire post, lead to a simple conclusion: up to 90% of federal budget revenues are commodity rents received in different ways. And only 10 percent left - taxes proper, paid by citizens. Thus, when we say to the state or its specific representatives “We pay our taxes for this,” our voice treacherously trembles, because even without these calculations on an intuitive level, we perfectly understand that a) we do not pay, b) we don’t pay
However, even here there is a spoon of honey: these same calculations mean that the state as a whole is not too interested in taxes from physical persons. Of course, if you are a big business, then it’s better not to have problems with cryptocurrency at all: the guys in black will happily come up with the questions “And who finances terrorism here and launders illegal proceeds, eh?” Ordinary users will hardly get into the field From the point of view of the tax authorities, regardless of what laws we will have to pass. Firstly, the scale is not the same. And secondly, our tax system has fewer opportunities than the IRS - neither Coinbase nor any other stock exchange in any other country of the world will dare, after all, ignore the decision of the American court. But the Russian courts can only reach the Russian stock exchanges. Ukrainian exchangers, which are now quite a lot, they, for example, is too tough. In the worst case, they will be “blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation”.
Simple logic here suggests that there is no sense in trying to tightly regulate an area that is not fully controlled. In the worst case, Russia will simply turn out to be a cryptocurrency Wild West, instead of being proud of the status of the first country to adopt a law on the legal regulation of cryptocurrency. Therefore, what would the working group come in the future, let's hope that they have enough state wisdom to approach the regulation of cryptocurrencies as liberal as possible.
PS To whom the war - and to whom the mother is native: news from the United States should raise the rate of anonymous DASH cryptocurrency, the mining of which is already available in Hashflare among the others cryptocurrency.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/399619/
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