Costa Rican lawmakers propose to remove almost all taxes on Bitcoin
by James · October 27, 2022
Legislators in Costa Rica are working to make the Central American country a Bitcoin-friendly nation, with significantly lower taxes on the crypto.
This week, Costa Rican lawmaker Johana Obando presented a bill to Congress to regulate the crypto market in the Central American country.
Obando, who now has one laser eyes meme said on its Twitter page that the Cryptoassets Market Law (MECA) would “provide protection to individual virtual private property, to self-storage of crypto-assets and to decentralization” without interference from the country’s central bank – but in “perfect harmony”. ” with that.
The idea is to have a law that recognizes what digital assets are and allows those who want to buy, sell, use and store their crypto to do so – without interference from the Costa Rican government.
Presented with congressmen Luis Diego Vargas and Jorge Dengo, the bill would not allow the government to tax cryptocurrencies when they are used to purchase goods. It would also not allow the government to tax crypto in cold storage – and crypto produced by the mining industry would also not be subject to profit tax. However, profits from crypto trading will be subject to income tax under the bill.
In short, the lawmakers want the Costa Rican government to recognize what crypto is and allow people to hold it and mostly use it freely. This, Obando said on Twitter, will eventually attract foreign investors, fintech companies and create jobs for Costa Ricans.
But Obando made it very clear that the law would be different from El Salvador’s Bitcoin law.
In El Salvador, Bitcoin is legal tender – meaning businesses must accept it if they have the technological means to do so.
“Does this bill propose the same thing as El Salvador? Absolutely not, Obando said on Twitter. “MECA introduces cryptocurrencies as a private virtual currency, with free access and circulation, and does not oblige the state to acquire or replace them.”
El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. But the Central American nation’s president, Nayib Bukele, has been criticized for the law (and his personal cryptocurrency investments, which he claims he buys on a whim, naked on the phone.)
The Costa Rican bill is similar to the one presented in Panama earlier this year: the so-called crypto law wished to regulate the use of Bitcoin and legalize decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) – but the country’s president vetoed it.
Elsewhere in Latin America, Paraguay works to draft clear rules for the Bitcoin mining industry, and Chile’s Senate this month approved a fintech bill that hopes to regulate the crypto industry.
