Various tax agencies around the world are now eyeing to impose taxes on cryptocurrencies to boost their revenue collections. A new company now offers its services to crypto investors to help them minimize their Bitcoin (BTC) taxes.
Plan B Passport assists crypto holders to get their second passport to a crypto-friendly jurisdiction of their choice. Investors can choose passports from seven tax-haven states that do not impose capital gains taxes on crypto holdings, according to CNBC.
“I was smart enough to figure out that $200 in bitcoin will be worth $100,000 at some point,” Russian expatriate Katie Ananina said. “I don’t think the government should have 40% of that.”
A former professional sailboat racer, Ananina started to see Bitcoin’s appeal back in 2015 when she was in Spain as a member of the Russian sailing team. At that time, the Russian dropped by a shocking 50 percent during the two months she was living there.
“My macroeconomics professor wasn’t able to explain that to me,” she explained. “There was no chance I could run my equations and figure out what happened there. I realized I wasn’t happy with how money works.”
As a Bitcoin maximalist or someone who believes that BTC is the future of finance, Ananina is not so keen on government interference with her crypto holdings. “If the government starts affecting me, I will take all [my assets] into my hands and go elsewhere,” she said.
This thinking led her to start her own company, which aims to help other crypto holders minimize the taxes they pay on their Bitcoin holdings. She explained that she knows several bitcoiners who are also thinking of getting a second passport for this purpose.
Plan B Passport can assist customers to get passports from Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Portugal, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Vanuatu. The company does this by coordinating with the residence- or citizenship-by-investment programs in these jurisdictions.
The arrangement is also advantageous for these states. “It’s an attractive way to draw foreign investment and especially prominent in countries with few natural resources,” said Ernest Marais, an attorney with international tax law firm Andersen. “In Saint Lucia you can obtain citizenship by an investment of between $100K (donation), $250K (government bonds), or $300K (real estate).”
With governments already starting to introduce tax law for digital currencies, business is booming for Ananina as she revealed that she only uses Twitter for marketing her services. “It’s basically a donation into the sustainable growth fund of the country,” she said. “So, clients make a $100,000 or $150,000 donation, plus some due diligence fees, government fees, and then $20,000 for my legal fees.”
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