Russian Government Legislative Committee Approves Finance Ministry Proposal on Cryptocurrency Taxation and Exemptions

On April 28, according to market news, the Russian government’s legislative committee has approved a proposal from the Finance Ministry to include operations related to digital currencies under the scope of personal income tax, which includes cryptocurrency exchanges. The bill proposes that transaction costs be accounted for using the FIFO (First In, First Out) method and prohibits the carryover of losses from digital currency transactions to future tax periods. Meanwhile, certain services and transactions are proposed to be exempt from value-added tax (VAT), including services from digital custodians, cryptocurrency exchange services, and some foreign digital rights transactions without physical delivery. For debt-type digital financial assets (such as tokenized bonds), the bill establishes separate profit tax calculation rules and allows for loss carryover. Previously, the State Duma of Russia had passed the ‘Digital Currency and Digital Rights’ bill in its first reading.