Starting from New Year’s Day 2021, the Russian government will require its public officials to declare private encrypted assets.
On October 20th, Russian Attorney General Igor Krasnov announced the above requirements after meeting with 15 attorneys general representing the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Krasnov said: “Starting next year, civil servants will be required to declare virtual currencies on the same basis as other assets.”
In 2018, the Russian Ministry of Labor announced that since cryptocurrencies are not regulated, public officials do not need to declare virtual assets in their tax statements. Therefore, people have always worried that encrypted assets may be the preferred financial tool for bribery and corruption.
The Russian Attorney General’s Office claimed that over the past three years, undisclosed non-crypto assets worth more than $440 million from public officials were confiscated.
The new requirements follow the new law signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in July, which will classify encrypted assets as similar to physical commodities from 2021 and recognize the country’s virtual currency for the first time.
Although the new law does not recognize cryptocurrency as legal currency, it will legalize cryptocurrency-related activities across Russia.
Except for Russia, India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, the non-member partner and observer countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Armenia and other countries The Attorney General also attended the meeting. The theme of this meeting is fighting corruption.
Russia’s statement on the encryption report indicates that similar laws may soon be implemented in Eurasia.
In August of this year, the Russian Federal Financial Supervisory Agency claimed that they had developed a method to “partially” de-anonymize Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and the popular privacy currency Monero (XMR) transaction. The agency also pointed out that some overseas countries have also shown interest in the system, which shows that Russia is considering promoting the system to its allies.
