Buenos Aires to accept crypto for tax payments, launch DLT-backed citizen profiles

Published at: April 28, 2022

The capital of Argentina and an agglomeration with more than 12 million citizens, Buenos Aires will make blockchain a vital part of its digitalization drive. Specifically, the city will accept public financial transactions in crypto. 

As city Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta revealed in his Steve Jobs-styled presentation on April 25, the 12-step development plan titled “Buenos Aires +” envisions a significant increase in crypto and blockchain adoption.

Con Buenos Aires + vamos a dar un paso más en el camino hacia un Estado facilitador que desburocratice y agilice los procesos. Un camino en el que el Estado sea el que se acerca a la gente, y no al revés. pic.twitter.com/yi6fUMmAUI

— Horacio Rodríguez Larreta (@horaciorlarreta) April 26, 2022

The city authorities intend to launch a platform for citizens’ digital IDs that will hold all the necessary information, such as birth dates and vaccine certificates, medical records, education documents. To make sure that such sensitive data is well-protected, the platform will run on distributed ledger technology (DLT). As Larreta emphasized in his speech:

“All that information stream, which will widen in a geometrical progression, will be protected by blockchain technology [...] We are going to become the pioneers of that technology adoption so the users could control their data on their own.”

The move would mark the second step out of 12 towards the digitalized Buenos Aires. What’s even more intriguing is that the ninth step entails the option for citizens to pay their taxes in cryptocurrencies. While the city, itself, won’t hold crypto on its public accounts, it will convert the citizens’ cryptocurrency transactions into Argentinian pesos.

As Buenos Aires’ Secretary of Innovation and Digital Transformation Diego Fernández specified in a separate statement, the city is going to partner with local crypto exchanges, such as SatoshiTango, Buenbit, Ripio and Belo, to facilitate such payments.

In December 2021, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin visited Buenos Aires during Web3 protocol The Graph’s launch anniversary. On that sojourn, he had a meeting with the former president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, who also happens to be the ex-mayor of Buenos Aires and Larreta’s fellow member at the “Republican Proposal” party.

Tags
Blockchain
Regulation
Government
Law
Dlt
Argentina
Vitalik Buterin
Taxes
Identity
Identification
Related Posts
Switzerland Won’t Amend Tax Law in Regard to Blockchain in Near Future
Switzerland’s existing tax law is applicable to developments in the blockchain industry, the Swiss Federal Council said. According to the federal authority, Switzerland does not need to amend its existing tax legislation in regard to blockchain and distributed ledger technology. No legislative action is necessary regarding the blockchain industry In a June 19 meeting, the Federal Council addressed a report on the need to amend Switzerland’s tax law in response to DLT and blockchain developments. According to the official statement, the existing legislation including income, profit, wealth, capital gains taxes, as well as VAT, “has proved its worth” regarding arrangements …
Blockchain / June 29, 2020
What Recent Developments in the Fintech Space Mean for Our Future
The fintech industry has been changing rapidly. Digital assets, distributed ledger technology and central bank digital currencies are gaining momentum. Multi-trillion-dollar United States Federal Reserve System money creation has increased demand for digital assets, particularly Bitcoin (BTC). Banks, brokers, commercial lenders, investment advisors, private investment funds, family offices, mutual funds, fintech entrepreneurs, lawmakers and private citizens should take note of several developments in this space. Old wine, new bottles The use of ledgers to track events and transactions is of ancient origin. DLT and blockchain technology combine venerable record-keeping techniques with new technologies — like storing old wine in new …
Technology / June 28, 2020
Russia’s regulatory sandbox and the implementation of blockchain tech
The main challenge companies face when testing and implementing innovative technologies is the need to amend existing legislation. Developing and testing new products based on distributed ledger technology requires special conditions that are often inconsistent with existing regulations. The solution to this problem would be the introduction of a special “regulatory sandbox” regime. It means the creation of an ecosystem within which companies and state-owned enterprises can test their developments without legislative obstacles. Federal law No. 258, “On Experimental Legal Regimes in the Field of Digital Innovation in the Russian Federation,” came into effect on Jan. 28. It allows new …
Technology / Feb. 6, 2021
Things to know (and fear) about new IRS crypto tax reporting
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R. 3684) put crypto in the crosshairs, where Congress and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) hope to scoop up enormous tax dollars. This reporting regime is projected to rake in an astounding $28 billion over the next ten years. No other provision in this massive recently enacted federal law is supposed to produce tax dollars that are even close. If you don’t think that means the IRS is coming for your crypto in a very big way and that Congress is trying hard to facilitate it, think again. The crypto community was outraged when …
Blockchain / Dec. 4, 2021
Know thy customer: The future of KYC in crypto
Crypto and Know Your Customer (KYC) guidelines seem to be an unhappy marriage — pseudonymity in the digital currencies’ DNA doesn’t match the old-school centralized protocols of traditional finance, but cohabitation is inevitable for the maturing industry. The tension never really goes away, but even before recent months’ market failures for crypto, the regulators have been clearly hogging the blanket, nudging the established platforms toward more strict authentication procedures and cutting the privacy-hardline players off the market. Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson expressed a popular opinion from the industry side in the United States Congress when he told legislators that no …
Adoption / July 8, 2022