Kazakhstan is becoming an increasingly popular destination for crypto miners. In that context, the country’s president has signed a new law that introduces an extra levy for crypto miners. The extra tax levy for energy will come into effect starting January 2022.
President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a new law that compels miners to pay the extra tax fee for energy used in the crypto mining process. Based on local news agency Kursiv, the new legislation introduces an extra fee of 1 Kazakhstan tenge ($0.00233) per kilowatt-hour used by the miners.
This levy is part of a series of legislative amendments to the national tax code targeting crypto miners. Notably, the Kazakh parliament passed the bill in mid-June.
The Chairman of the committee for economic reform and regional development, Albert Rau, stated that the primary purpose of the new law is to regulate the cryptocurrency mining sector and “bring it out of the shadows.”
Rau is a former First Vice-Minister of investment and development of Kazakhstan and is allegedly the author of the new legislative initiative. Kazakhstan has previously emerged as an attractive destination for crypto mining activities.
Based on data acquired from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, the country is the fourth-biggest nation worldwide in terms of its cumulative Bitcoin hash rate share after China, the US, and Russia.
According to previous reports, Chinese crypto mining behemoths like Canaan have been shifting their operations to Kazakhstan amid a major crackdown on cryptocurrency mining by the Chinese authorities. Also, a major Chinese mining pool, BTC.com, managed to relocate a part of its miners to Kazakhstan in late June.
