Authorities intend to identify miners on electricity bills in Russia

The Ministry of Communications and Mass Media has announced plans to allow mining to both individuals and companies. But at the same time the process of the agency is going to keep control. For example, in the future a miner detection system will appear on specific patterns of energy consumption and the structure of Internet traffic. These data will be used to determine the power of mining equipment with the amount of cryptocurrency that is declared by the miner in the report.

Interestingly, for miners are going to set quotas for electricity and a special tariff. All these actions will be carried out by the Office according to the new concept of regulating mining. Initially, miners are waiting for good times, Vedomosti writes . Namely - they will be given two years of tax holidays.

True, during the holidays the accounting report will still have to be kept. After completing the two-year grace period, they will be required to pay income tax. However, cryptobusinessmen will not pay VAT. However, it is not yet clear what private miners will pay for.

So far, the concept has not been adopted, but before February 1 they are going to finalize it and transfer it to the government. This was stated by a participant in the discussion of the document in the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media. Most members of the working group supported the idea of ​​tax holidays. True, it was originally planned to extend the holidays to five years, but during the discussion it was decided to reduce this period to two years. In addition, it was proposed to establish the criteria for industrial mining (the main characteristics are energy consumption and computational power). Initially, it was industrial mining that was taxed by officials, freeing "private owners" from taxes.

“If [cryptocurrency] is some kind of digital product, then what about VAT?” If there is any speculative income or conversion tools, then what about the income tax and personal income tax? ”Nikolai Nikiforov, the head of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications, raised the question. In his opinion, the issue of cryptocurrency taxation can be called key.

According to experts, it is really easy to identify the miner, since the capacities where mining takes place have approximately equal energy consumption at any time of the day. Power consumption is very high. The second indicator, which indicates the presence of mining equipment - is Internet traffic. True, it can be encrypted, in which case the crypto-acquirer will be difficult to detect.

However, if the mining center is located in the data center, then there are certain kinds of difficulties, since the DC also has about the same level of energy consumption. In this case, you may need to check with a visit to the object. According to a number of experts, it will be difficult to find miners in any case, but it will not be possible to control them.

In the working group that discusses the miners, there is an opinion that cryptocurrencies and their mining should be allowed, taking the example of Belarus. There cryptocurrencies are allowed to mine, change, sell. In addition, the Belarusian miners can make any transactions around the world. At the same time, mining in Belarus is not considered an enterprise, and until 2023 it will not be taxed. True, there are some restrictions on legal entities. They need the mediation of a resident of the Belarusian high-tech park to carry out operations with cryptocurrency.

If the Russian legislation is too tough, then the local miners will just leave for Belarus, according to the Internet ombudsman and the owner of the Radius Group (data centers) Dmitry Marinichev.

As for the tax holidays, they provide an opportunity to adapt. However, in two years the cryptosphere itself can change beyond recognition. In particular, about 80% of bitcoins have already been mined, and Ethereum can completely abandon mining. The fact that the foundations of cryptoeconomics need to be laid right now is sure of VEB representative Vladimir Demin.

The Ministry of Justice confirmed participation in the meeting regarding the cryptosphere in Russia by the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media. True, there is no clear ministry position yet - it has yet to be formed. But if normative acts are received, the Ministry of Justice will consider them, and a representative of the ministry informed.