The Tax Office of the Russian Federation received information about more than 100,000 users of the LocalBitcoins P2P platform in 2021. Andrey Tugarin, managing partner of GMT Legal, announced this by referring to these departments.

LocalBitcoins is registered in Finland and is in constant interaction with the Finnish police and tax authorities. Direct information about customers of the platform is not provided to state bodies and services of the Russian Federation.

In a comment to ForkLog, Tugarin said that LocalBitcoins transmits data to tax authorities in Finland, which provides them at the request of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation under the Agreement on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. It is this procedure that gives official status to the transmitted information.

The request relates to information for 2021 as it is the current reporting period for tax.

“Today, a large number of laws on digital assets are being developed in the Russian Federation. All government agencies are focused on obtaining the maximum amount of data on cryptocurrency holders in the country,” said Andrey Tugarin.

The lawyer recommended that Russian LocalBitcoins users start preparing tax returns to avoid problems. The reporting period ends on May 4.

Recall that on February 17, 2021, the State Duma of the Russian Federation at the first reading took as a basis a bill on the taxation of transactions with cryptocurrencies. It is expected to be finally accepted before the end of the spring semester.

The document recognizes cryptocurrencies as property and is obliged to report to the tax authorities on the turnover of digital assets in the amount of more than 600,000 rubles per year.

In case of non-payment or incomplete payment of tax in transactions made with digital currencies, a penalty of 40% of the unpaid tax amount will be applied.

In 2021, Coinbase, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange, received five requests from the Russian Federation’s government and law enforcement agencies to disclose information about users.