At a local event, the city of Rio de Janeiro announced that Bitcoin (BTC) can be used by its citizens to pay their taxes in 2023. This makes it the first Brazilian city to offer such a solution.
Bitcoin can be used to pay taxes in Rio de Janeiro
From 2023, residents of Rio de Janeiro will be able to use Bitcoin (BTC) to pay their taxes. Specifically, this concerns what the city calls the Urban and Territorial Property Tax (IPTU in Portuguese), which will be able to be paid in cryptocurrency.
The announcement was made on Friday at a local event on the theme of crypto-assets: the Carioca Cryptoactivity. With this announcement, Rio officially becomes the first Brazilian city to accept BTC.
Starting next year, the City Hall will deploy a technical solution to allow automatic conversion of assets into the local currency for those citizens who choose this method. The mayor, Edouardo Paes, had some very encouraging words to say about our ecosystem:
“Our effort here is to make it clear that in the city of Rio we have official initiatives that recognise this market. Now, those who invest in cryptocurrency and live [here] will be able to spend this asset […] paying the official tax of the city of Rio. And we will move forward quickly. “
A vision beyond taxes
The municipality’s desire to give cryptocurrencies a central place doesn’t just stop at taxation. Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO of Binance, was in fact visiting Rio on March 17. He announced the opening of an office in the city, commenting on Edouardo Paes’ measure: “
“.
He has done his part [of the job]. We are working on ours. “
9 days ago, I made a handshake deal with mayor @eduardopaes Rio De Janeiro will accept crypto for tax payments, and @Binance will open an office in Rio. He’s done his part. We are working on ours. https://t.co/HPJONtBfQ8
– CZ Binance (@cz_binance) March 26, 2022
The municipal secretary, Pedro Paulo, announced that the conversion service, which will be adopted by the city, will be developed. He mentioned the payment of taxis.
Without further details being given, the promotion of arts and culture through non-fungible tokens (NTF) is also mentioned. A public consultation is planned in order to establish the lines of work concerning this dimension.
While the European Union is a poor performer, over the past year we have seen more and more cities and states around the world take clear positions in favour of cryptocurrencies.
Rio de Janeiro will officially start accepting Bitcoin (BTC) payments for taxes related to urban real estate within their city limits, otherwise known as Imposto sobre a propriedade predial e territorial urbana (IPTU). pic.twitter.com/5fgTg9J8y8
– KIWI Insights (@KiwiInsights) March 28, 2022
Rio de Janeiro is just the latest example. With the arrival of Binance in the city, we can only see that this is typically the kind of policy choice, which can attract important players in a developing ecosystem.
