The Ministry of Finance will demand to pay the income tax of individuals earn in cryptocurrency

The Ministry of Finance intends to demand from Russians who make money on transactions with cryptocurrencies to pay individual income tax, the Kommersant newspaper writes with reference to two letters of the department at once. The ministry came to the conclusion that the obscure legal "essence" of cryptocurrencies does not prevent them from bringing the income that is taxed by personal income tax.

According to lawyers, the proposal of the Ministry of Finance may be interesting to turn cryptocurrency into rubles and legalize funds, having paid 13% of tax for this, but there are hardly many people who want to.

In his first letter, the Ministry of Finance admitted that it is still unclear than to consider cryptocurrencies - a means of payment, property or securities. To date, the "legal definition of cryptocurrencies, as well as their essence in the legislation" is not defined, the ministry indicated.

In another letter, the financial department reported that, despite the unclear status of cryptocurrencies, income from transactions with them is taxed by personal income tax. The special procedure for taxing transactions with bitcoins has not been established, follows from the letter.

Consequently, when determining the taxable income of such transactions, a general procedure applies when "the income recognizes the economic benefit in monetary or natural form, which is taken into account in the event of the possibility of its assessment to the extent that such benefits can be evaluated."

To evaluate the benefits of transactions with cryptocurrency, declare the income received and calculate the tax (personal income tax) of the Ministry of Finance offers citizens on their own, notes the publication. At the request of Kommersant about what should be considered income in the case of transactions with cryptocurrency - gross income from the transaction or the difference between the cost of buying and selling the currency did not answer the Ministry of Finance.

"At present, the Ministry of Finance of Russia, together with interested ministries and departments, as well as the Bank of Russia ... Work is underway to prepare legislative proposals that determine the status of digital technologies used in the financial sector and their concepts," a representative of the Ministry of Finance told the newspaper. "Part of this work is also the formulation of proposals to determine the procedure for taxation of cryptocurrencies."

In practice, however, the administration of income tax on cryptocurrencies is an unrealistic task, experts say. According to the co -founder and general director of the Cryptobank of Wirex, Pavel Matveev, to prove the person’s involvement in cryptocurrency transactions, the tax authorities will need to track transactions, as well as establish information exchange with exchanges to obtain access to the KYS base (identification data of customers).

Calculating the tax on the difference between the purchase and sale of bitcoins also seems to be unrealistic.

However, in certain situations, the object of taxation can still be quite obvious. “If the payment for cryptocurrency was received in the Russian Bank, then it is possible to determine gross income from the transaction,” says Taxology partner Alexei Artyukh, “as well as hold 13% of personal income tax from it.”

Nothing, however, prevents citizens from paying tax on income with cryptocurrency voluntarily. According to the head of AB "Starinsky, Korchago and partners" Evgeny Korchago, the position of the Ministry of Finance does not conflict with tax legislation, in this case it does not matter what brought the taxpayer income - the sale of any property or cryptocurrencies.