The Ukrainian parliament has proposed a bill that will see crypto profits taxed. Authorities in the country estimate that the residents own about $3.5 billion in crypto coins (98.7 billion in national currency). And they believe taxing cryptos can add up to $45 million annually between 2019 and 2024.
The lawmakers are proposing a 5 percent tax on crypto profits that individuals and business entities realize from trading their crypto coins. According to the bill, these profits should be reported separately from other forms of income.
The bill goes on to state that commercial entities will see the tax jump to 18 percent by Jan 1st, 2024. It also suggests that the concept of cryptocurrencies should be defined in the country’s tax code as “a virtual asset in a form of a token, which functions as a means of exchange or a store of value.”
It also suggests that virtual assets should be defined as “a form of a digital record on the distributed ledger that can be used as a means of exchange, a unit of account or a means of storing value.”
The bill also has a section that explains how Ukraine was once a bitcoin mining powerhouse. The nation hosted the early leaders of the crypto mining industry with almost 30 percent of the global mining power.
The country was home to GHash, the biggest BTC mining pool at the time. At one point back in 2014, the nation controlled 55 percent of the total bitcoin protocol. This raised the question if it could initiate a 51 percent attack.
Later on, regulatory uncertainty in the country saw some of those top companies leave for friendlier jurisdictions like Georgia, Canada, and Finland. This left Ukraine without a prominent money making tool according to the document.
The document adds:
“Given the current state of affairs, Ukrainians are deprived of the opportunity to raise funds and resources to develop their ideas and technologies through traditional instruments. So, last year, Ukrainian companies did not get a single dollar through an IPO (primary public offering) mechanism. At the same time, according to the Ukrainian association UVCA and Deloitte in 2017, 19 Ukrainian start-ups attracted $ 160 million or more than UAH (Ukrainian hryvnia) 4.3 billion through the ICO (the primary token proposal).
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