The US Senate today approved the infrastructure plan proposed by President Joe Biden, for an amount of 1.2 trillion dollars, and also took a step forward in the control of the burgeoning cryptoassets industry. The approved plan, which must now obtain the green light in Congress, includes an amendment that transactions with cryptocurrencies must be notified to the Treasury, in an evident effort to avoid tax evasion in this type of negotiation. In fact, it is estimated that the measure will allow the collection of taxes of 28,000 million dollars (23,930 million euros) with which to contribute to the financing of the ambitious infrastructure plan.
The approval of that amendment has been subject to a heated debate, in which the powerful lobby of the cryptoassets industry has put its weight in Washington. Thus, a group of Democratic and Republican senators launched a proposal, which has not gone ahead, in which they bet to define with greater precision the figure of the cryptoactive broker, so that a good part was left out of the obligation to inform the Treasury of the industry surrounding digital currencies.
In other words, software developers or bitcoin miners, with the argument of not hindering the technological strength of the sector.
“We want to facilitate greater clarity in the rules about who the current cryptocurrency brokers are.
It's not about anything radical, ”Republican Senator Pat Toomey, one of the proponents of the change in the amendment, defended at a press conference.
Finally, his proposal has not had enough support to become an amendment and the original text will be passed to Congress, which establishes the obligation to inform the Treasury of cryptocurrency transactions to all actors in this market, without distinction.
The final wording of the text has had Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency operators in suspense.
And even so, the last word has not been said since the law that includes Biden's infrastructure plan must be processed in Congress, which heralds a new legislative pulse.
The need to control tax fraud in trading cryptocurrencies has already been warned on numerous occasions by Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury.
The law approved today in the Senate is one of the first responses to the regulatory challenge that the US has ahead in view of the strength of stock trading and also of crypto assets in social networks and that it has had in the Reddit forum and his attack on Gamestop one of the best examples.