Committee Approves Bill on Information Exchange for Cryptoassets

The parliamentary foreign policy committee approved at first reading a bill to ratify the Multilateral Agreement between competent authorities for the automatic exchange of information in accordance with the Framework for the Provision of Information for Crypto-assets and the Addendum to the Multilateral Agreement between competent authorities for the automatic exchange of information on financial accounts.

A total of 12 MPs voted “for“, there were no votes against, and three abstained. The bill was submitted by the Council of Ministers.

With the ratification of the agreements, the exchange of information with countries from around the world will be allowed, said the director of the “Agreements for the Avoidance of Double Taxation” Directorate at the National Revenue Agency (NRA), Desislava Kaludova. She explained that through the agreement, Bulgaria will have more effective mechanisms to counter tax evasion.

Ivan Ivanov, Chief Legal Counsel in the “Agreements for the Avoidance of Double Taxation” Directorate at the NRA, explained that data will be received for legal entities and individuals. 

The motives of the bill state that the two agreements were developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the implementation of the new standard for the automatic exchange of information for crypto-assets (CARF) and the changes to the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), included in the document “International Standards for Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters – Framework for the Provision of Information for Crypto-assets and amendment of the Common Reporting Standard of 2023.”

The document proposes the introduction of new global rules for the automatic exchange of information regarding crypto-assets, as well as additions to the automatic exchange of information for financial accounts.

The aim of the new rules is to increase tax transparency with regard to crypto-assets and electronic money and to improve administrative cooperation through the exchange of the information received between the competent authorities. The rules provide for the provision of information and its automatic exchange between the competent authorities to be carried out in a standardized format.