The Ministry of Finance has developed amendments on digital financial assets that provide for prison sentences for undeclared cryptocurrency. Experts consider this excessive, noting that there are no such penalties for other types of property.
Owners of digital currencies can be imprisoned for up to three years if they fail to report to the tax authorities at least twice in three years about transactions with digital currencies in the amount of 45 million rubles or more. and higher (in equivalent). This follows from amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes of Russia prepared by the Ministry of Finance.

RBC Crypto reported in September that the Ministry of Finance is preparing amendments on criminal liability for undeclared cryptocurrency, with reference to one of the versions of the bill. But that document included smaller amounts—the equivalent of 5 million rubles was proposed to be considered a particularly large amount of unaccountable money.

The Ministry also developed amendments to the Tax Code, anti-money laundering legislation and the Code of Administrative Offenses regarding the regulation of digital currencies and digital financial assets (DFAs). “Compliance with these recommendations will reduce the number of transactions related to money laundering obtained by criminal means,” the department’s press service emphasized. All documents are presented for public discussion.

After the publication of the article, the ministry clarified that legislative regulation is primarily necessary to prevent the illegal use of digital currencies. “The use of digital currencies is increasing every year. Often this happens not only for investment purposes, but also for the laundering of criminal proceeds,” the press service reported, adding that it is impossible to track the owners of digital currencies, the volumes of their wallets and the purpose of payments, as is the case with bank transfers. At the same time, according to the FATF (the international Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering),