Hacker News Reader

Comment by anorsich | Hacker News Reader

No taxes (until 2023) on mining, selling/buying tokens. Here are details:

• The rights of physical and legal entities in terms of token circulation are defined. Legal entities are entitled to possess tokens, create and list their own tokens through HTP residents; buy, exchange tokens and perform other operations using tokens only through the cryptocurrency exchanges and cryptocurrency exchange operators. • Individuals are entitled to possess tokens; perform mining; exchange tokens, buy and sell them for Belarusian rubles, foreign currency, e-money, as well as present and bequeath tokens. The mining activity of individuals, tokens purchasing and sale shall not be considered entrepreneurial activity. • Tokens and revenues from operations with them shall not be subject to declaration by the individuals. • Turnovers, profits (income, proceeds) from various operations with tokens are not recognised as taxable items until January 2023.

View on HN

Some oligarch must've invested into cryptocurrencies, otherwise they wouldn't give a crap about it.

We don't have oligarchs in Belarus :) Victor Prokopenia (https://www.facebook.com/viktor.prokopenya), one of the most famous investors and businessman from Belarus is the one who actually influenced these changes.

Victor Prokopenia was jailed in 2015 and detained for many months. Once he was released, he started consulting president's inner circles. This policy of carrot and stick is what prevents the appearance of oligarchs in Belarus. They are intimidated before they become too powerful to ignore. Very little information leaks about the reasons of such detentions and liberations.

The reasons are well known, budget needs money and rich people are good source of it.

That's a weird set of colleges attended. 7 degrees, with Stanford and Full Sail both in the mix?

Victor often refers learning and education as his hobby.

So we're all setting up shop in Belarus to get our Crypto profits tax-free?

There are plenty of European countries and other tax havens that offer tax free gains with a much better track record of trustworthiness.

Like who? Can you provide tax rates and track record, please?

Nothing an afternoon of Googling can't tell you. Too much work to list them all. Current and previous British crown dependencies (also the UK) are generally good.

Unless you're an American. You'll probably be out of luck then.

Yes, a lot of companys stopped do business with Americans. They are all afraid about the crazy US law system. Special in the last recent years, when the US government likes to see everybodys underwear, if you do business with US customers.

you got it

Belarus is finishing its first nuclear power station and wants to use the surplus capacity. Initially, they planned to sell it to Baltic countries, but these are in the EU, so it is not yet sure they will cut a deal. EU has a huge anti-nuclear, pro-carbon lobby.

Nuclear powered ASICs and GPUs without intermediaries, that would be a thing!

More like the EU has a huge anti-Belarus lobby (and for very good reasons). The Baltic countries mostly have their own nuclear plants, with no plans to close them; not that much anti-nuclear sentiment.

Dude, you are lying. Lithuania closed its last nuclear reactor, which had been generating 70% of its electricity, at the end of 2009, due to EU pressure. Latvia and Estonia never had one.

Lithuania's one was two elderly Chernobyl-style reactors which were already past their design life; shutting them was fairly reasonable. I thought Estonia had a couple, but apparently not.

Yeah, Lithuania making big deal out of this nuclear station. They aren't happy that it's based close to the border and they trying to say that it's not safe, blah-blah-blah, nobody will buy electricity and so on. Other countries don't have issues with this station though, EU checked it and found everything within norms. But every time something happens at the construction, like they pour concrete at the wrong spot, Lithuania blows the whistle. Lukashenka said that it will be build no matter what, and neighbors will have to deal with it.

But it is big deal. In worst case scenario, most of Lithuania's land would be no-go zone. Violating Espoo and Aarhus Conventions, lying and covering up accidents, while normal practice in Russia & co countries, it is not in EU. Could you please provide source for "EU checked it and found everything within norms"?

The construction spot complies with all MAGATE standards:

http://www.belta.by/economics/view/ostrovetskaja-ploschadka-...

MAGATE SEED mission external risks report is overall positive:

https://news.tut.by/economics/546471.html http://minenergo.gov.by/wp-content/uploads/Report-SEED-missi...

Here's interview with vice-minister of energetic where he answers a lot of questions and concerns of Lithuania: There's 7 more MAGATE SEED missions planned to visit the station and security tests are going according to the plan.

https://news.tut.by/politics/486906.html

Here's info that crush-tests were made and results provided to EU commission and everyone who wants to know.

https://news.tut.by/society/567848.html

What I see is that Lithuania takes totally nonconstructive position. They concerned about security of the station, but at the same time want to pull off the scientists from EU commission that will be working on implementing EU security standards on station.

https://news.tut.by/economics/562015.html

Reality is this station will be build, because Belarus needs it for energetic security to diversify it's energy consumption from dependency russian gas. Belarusians are the first who interested in high security standards. But Lithuania wants Belarus to stop building it, it's ultimatum and it's not going to work. It's not to late to find compromise decision and Belarus is open for dialog and Lithuania tries to take unfriendly steps like twist the facts and mix up the question about station with the other things. Even swedish deputy said you guys shouldn't bring Europe to two-sided conflict:

https://news.tut.by/economics/550112.html

None of your sources are independent. You can't quote a Belarusian source on a dispute between Belarus and a foreign country.

He didn't ask for independent sources, he asked for any source. Also if you've studied them carefully, not just trolled, you could see the document in English created by EU commission that is part of info he's looking for.

I'm actually open to see any documents saying that station violates EU standards from the other side if they exist.

Lithuania had its own Nuclear Power plant (Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant) which it closed in order to join the EU. At first, it was promising to its people that the EU will help it to build another one ("safer"), but of course nothing happened. And with the new Belorussian Nuclear Power Plant, there is no good business case for it anymore.

Further to this, one of the main concerns for Lithuania (and other Baltic states) is energy independence from Russia. Ignalina made them a net-exporter of electricity, but now almost 70% of electricity is imported, mostly from Sweden. Gas and oil mostly comes from Russia, and all national gas companies in the Baltic states are largely owned by Russian companies.

As you say there is no reason for another plant to be built in the area now, but it'll also mean the Baltic states most likely end up purchasing electricity from Belarus. As they have strong political ties with Russia, that doesn't really help their case in becoming more independent.

The same case is for Belarus. Building this station is part of becoming energy independent from buying Russian gas. Lukashenko will build it even if it's non-profitable and Lithuania won't buy energy from it. He's stubborn SOB when it comes to independence.

At such odds with the standard HN complaints about people not paying their “fair share” of taxes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com