Welcome to Latam Insights, a compendium of Latin Americaās most relevant crypto and economic news during the last week. In this issue: Nayib Bukele wins the presidential elections in El Salvador, the Brazilian tax authority finds over 25,000 irregularities in crypto tax statements, and Argentine President Javier Milei warns there will be no dollarization this year.
Latam Insights: Bukele Wins Presidential Ballot by Landslide, Brazil Strengthens Crypto Tax Oversight
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Nayib Bukele Wins El Salvadorās Ballot by Landslide
Nayib Bukele, the current president of El Salvador, won the presidential election on Sunday by a landslide, an outcome that was predicted by mostly all local polls and reports. The leader, who has been vocal about his support of Bitcoin and introduced the disputed idea of establishing bitcoin as legal tender in a country for the first time, garnered the support of most of the Salvadoran society, scoring at least 85% of the popular vote.
Felix Ulloa, vice-president of El Salvador, had declared that if Bukele won the presidential ballot by a landslide, he would deepen the application of bitcoin policies, like the program of giving passports to bitcoin entrepreneurs and the issuance of the Volcano bonds, that would provide part of the funding for the construction of Bitcoin City, a planned tax haven for crypto companies.
Brazil Detects Over 25,000 Irregularities in Bitcoin Tax Statements
The Brazilian tax authority, Receita Federal do Brasil (RFB), is strengthening the oversight of cryptocurrency tax. According to local reports, the institution detected irregularities in more than 25,000 tax statements from taxpayers who held at least 0.05 BTC in their wallets but did not disclose it. Adding all the irregularities, it is estimated that at least 1.06 billion reals ($213 million) worth of bitcoin went undeclared.
The investigation that led to these findings combined traditional and artificial intelligence techniques to identify these taxpayers who omitted their crypto holdings from their statements. In total, the tax authority received 237,369 tax statements with bitcoin registered investments.
Argentinaās Milei States There Will Be No Dollarization in 2024
Argentine President Javier Milei is slowing down the application of its libertarian reforms. One of the key promises of Milei during its presidential campaign, the shutdown of the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) and the liquidation of its fiat currency, will have to wait until at least next year to come to fruition.
When asked about the subject in a recent interview with local media, Milei stated:
There is no time. Think that if we maintained the current pace of sanitation of the BCRA, it would only be clean at the end of June. Adapting the financial system model can take up to a year.
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