According to a law announced on October 11th, taxpayers in Rio de Janeiro will be able to use cryptocurrency in addition to fiat cash to pay taxes beginning in 2023. This action establishes Rio as the first municipality in Brazil to accept cryptocurrencies as a form of tax payment.
The city has announced that in the future, residents would be able to pay their taxes with a wider variety of cryptocurrencies. Companies offering these services must register with the municipality and meet the standards set by the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as stated in the decree.
The contracted firms will facilitate bitcoin payments and perform cryptocurrency-to-fiat currency conversions. The transfer to the municipality will be made in freely usable local money. Rio de Janeiro mayor, Eduardo Paes, said that the city had become a major international city. As a result, they keep an eye on the development of the economy and technology surrounding cryptocurrency and other forms of digitally stored value. The future is bright, and they plan to make the city the technological hub of the nation. Their municipality is the first in Brazil to provide this sort of compensation to their taxpayers.
Measures of a similar nature have been implemented in numerous countries. The U.S. state of Colorado began accepting cryptocurrencies as tax payments in September. Various measures have been presented in the legislatures of Arizona, Wyoming, and Utah to allow for the acceptance of digital currency tax payments.
Efforts like Rio de Janeiro are representative of a national trend toward increased uptake. Receita Federal do Brasil, Brazil’s tax agency, found that 12,053 different entities listed cryptocurrency on their balance sheets in August. This is 6.1% more than the previous month.
