Key facts:
Mauricio Tovar believes that the rules should take into account game theory and common sense.
According to Tovar, using bitcoin for remittances could save Colombians $200 million.
The retroactive sanctions implied by the new regulations to declare bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies in Colombia will encourage investors to withdraw from the country. This was stated by Mauricio Tovar, co-founder of Tropycus Finance, in his speech at a panel organized by a Colombian media outlet on Wednesday night.
Tovar, who is a relevant participant in the Colombian bitcoin and cryptocurrency community, He referred to recent statements by Lisandro Junco Riveira, director of the Colombian tax collection office.
As reported by CriptoNoticias, Junco Riveira said in an interview that the income obtained from saving in cryptocurrencies must be declared as a “patrimonial omission” and pay the correction fines corresponding to each year since the purchase of the crypto assets. These fines can be between 10% of the debt, up to 100% of the assets.
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In the opinion of Mauricio Tovar, a regulation that has just been published should not entail retroactive sanctions for income tax returns not made in years prior to their publication. “Many people want to declare taxes, but it seems innocent and authoritarian to me that a guide is issued one week and people want to be sanctioned six years ago,” he said.
Tovar believes that this type of sanctions will end up drive away from Colombia investors with significant capital in cryptocurrencies, who will simply take your investments and move them to countries with more favorable regulations. In this sense, he said that the sanctions did not consider “common sense, nor game theory”, since countries like El Salvador opened the doors to investments in bitcoin with zero taxes.
He called on Colombian regulators to encourage fair tax payments, based on incentives. “People respond to incentives, create the right incentives for things to happen,” said Tovar, referring to those responsible for tax policies in Colombia.
Cryptocurrency remittances can save Colombians millions
Another of the topics addressed in the panel broadcast by Enter.co was that of remittances with cryptocurrencies. According to Hernando Barreto, Co-founder of the Center for the Development of the Digital Economy CDED, Colombia receives USD 8.5 billion per year in remittances, equivalent to 3% of Colombian GDP.
However, the transfers are made through financial intermediaries, such as Western Union, which can charge fees between 2% and 7%. Jorge Cortes, co-founder of BitBasel, also a participant on the panel, said that these companies “have created a harmful and toxic system.” In his opinion, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are more efficient for payments, due to their immediacy, minimum cost and transparency.
For his part, Mauricio Tovar stated that the use of bitcoin to send remittances would represent considerable savings for Colombians. He pointed out that, last year, remittances to Colombia were calculated at USD 10.6 billion, which implies that, with a 3% fee, intermediaries received more than USD 300 million. In his opinion, using cryptocurrencies, even if the fees are not zero, Colombians would save almost all of that amount.