The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, has passed a bill on the taxation of digital assets that exempts their sale from value added tax (VAT) in the Russian Federation. Some other services of digital asset exchanges will also be exempt, according to state news service RIA Novosti.
In addition, the bill establishes tax rates of 13% for Russian exchanges on the first 5 million rubles (currently about $93,000) of the annual tax base, 15% on amounts exceeding that limit and 15% on overview for forex traders. The current tax rate for companies is 20%.
Taxation of digital assets under the bill is analogous to taxes on securities, reports RIA Novosti. The government noted in the bill that a separate tax procedure for digital assets is key to creating an efficient and competitive digital economy.
Russia has moderated its skeptical stance on cryptocurrency as the country has increasingly felt the pressure of Western economic sanctions stemming from its invasion of Ukraine. Major Russian banks have been blocked from the SWIFT system and G7 countries have banned the purchase of freshly mined or refined Russian gold this week. These measures, along with a host of other sanctions, led to Russia defaulting on foreign debt service on Monday.
The Russian bank Sber is preparing to launch a stablecoin, and the first deputy president of the Russian Central Bank, Olga Skorobogatova, stated in an interview on June 23 that tests of a digital ruble will be brought forward from 2024 to April 2023. A pilot project involving 12 Russian banks is currently underway.
“I believe that every state worth its salt will have a national digital currency within three years. […] We must be prepared as soon as possible. Also, this will fix the problem of SWIFT blocking, because this integration will make SWIFT unnecessary,” Skorobogatova said.
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