Kazakhstan sanctioned a new tax rate policy to crypto miners


Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has sanctioned new tax rates for crypto miners – and tax bodies have been told to charge miners at a pace of up to USD 0.052 per kilowatt hour (kWh) from January 1, 2023.
As of now,
miners have to pay a flat rate of just over USD 0.002 per kWh consumed. However,
following a winter that was blighted by crypto mining-related power shortages,
the government set out to compel bitcoin (BTC) and crypto miners to pay more.
The
government started to wail over the fact that miners were paying “negligible”
taxes on their earnings back in February and last month tried to make changes
to the tax code.
Kazakhstan finance ministry claimed that in Q1 of the current financial year, miners paid
more than USD 15m in tax.
The new
tax measure, which will operate on a sliding scale, was signed into law by
Tokayev on Monday. As such, instead of paying a flat rate per unit of energy
consumed, users who pay a higher electricity price will pay a maximum of USD
0.052 per kWh of tax, while consumers who pay less for electricity will pay as
little as USD 0.002 per kWh consumed.
As energy
prices will quite often differ consistently, this will intend that as power costs
rise in the country, so too will miners’ tax bills.
Most
miners operate in the nation’s capital Nur-Sultan, which was previously known
as Astana.
On the
good side, miners who are using their power sources will be taxed at a rate of
around USD 0.02 per kWh, and those who can use renewable power sources in their
mining efforts will have to pay tax rates of just 0.002 per kWh.
The
government has indicated that it is prepared to take action against unlawful and
unregistered miners. Recently, it introduced a legal requirement forcing all
miners to register with a central body and give detailed reports on their
operations.

Joyashree Dey
CBW - External Analyst
INDIA