Rio de Janeiro to Allow Citizens to Pay Property Taxes in Crypto from 2023

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro will let its crypto-holding residents use their coins to pay their property tax bills from next year.

Globo reported that the city hall has published a decree in its Municipal Gazette that states that Rio will “hire companies specialized in carrying out the conversion of cryptoassets into [fiat]” to let Rio residents pay a property tax known as the IPTU (the Urban Building and Land Tax).

In Brazil, IPTU payments on a piece of real estate are determined by calculating its market value. All municipalities in the nation charge their residents this tax, which generates money for state governments. Taxpayers can either pay all their IPTU obligations in one annual lump sum or pay in monthly installments.

The city government explained that its deals with crypto firms would allow “the municipality to receive 100% of the value” of crypto payments in fiat without incurring “additional cost” to city hall.

The project is the brainchild of the city’s pro-crypto Mayor, Eduardo Paes, who earlier this year indicated that he was looking into ways of allowing Rio to start holding crypto in its treasury.

Rio ‘Will Be First City in Brazil’ to Accept Crypto Tax Payments

Mayor Paes was quoted as stating the latest development:

“Rio de Janeiro is a global city. As such, we are following the technological and economic developments in the world of digital financial assets. We are looking to the future and we want to help [Rio] become the country’s capital of innovation and technology.”

Paes claimed that Rio was “already ahead” of a number of other Brazilian provinces that are also looking into crypto-powered tax payment programs.

The Mayor said:

“We are the first city in Brazil to offer this type of payment option to taxpayers.”

The decree notes that crypto firms working with city hall on the project would need to ensure they abide by Central Bank protocols and follow the same kind of procedures that traditional financial institutions would when handling tax payments.

Back in January, Paes also spoke of the possibility of offering people incentives or bonuses for choosing to pay their IPTU bills in bitcoin (BTC).