The National Department of Business Registration and Integration, an agency of the Ministry of Economy, issued a letter favorable to the possibility of capital payment with cryptocurrencies. The document is a response of the Department to a question from the Board of Trade of the State of São Paulo.
According to the text, the Board questioned the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment in corporate transactions and company capital payment. The Department states that the matter may be of interest to all Boards of Trade, so it decided to release the text.
The Ministry of Economy’s office based its position on definitions of the Central Bank and the Internal Revenue Service. Thus, it replied that “there is no express legal interdiction to the payment of capital with cryptocurrencies”.
Capital payment with cryptocurrencies is allowed by the Civil Code
At this point, it also cited Article 7 of Law 6.404/1976 and the Civil Code. In the latter case, Article 997 says that the company’s capital may “comprise any kind of assets, susceptible to monetary evaluation”. While the law states that they can form the share capital with “contributions in cash or any kind of assets susceptible to monetary valuation”.
Besides, the Ministry of Economy body also examined a question as to the formalities to operationalize records involving crypto. In the Department’s assessment, “there are no special formalities” in these cases.
However, the Boards must comply with “the same rules apply to the payment of capital with movables, according to their corporate type”. And the Boards of Trade should therefore be limited to “examining compliance with legal formalities”.
What are the Boards of Trade
The Boards of Trade are responsible for the records of company activities. They are the ones who make, for example, the public register of commercial companies. The country has 27 together: one for each state and one for the Federal District.
In Brazil, there is not yet a specific law for the crypto market. However, there are two Normative Instructions of the Internal Revenue Service. They define, for example, how to declare this type of asset. In the assessment of Julian Lanzadera, head of Business Development at Transfero Swiss, the principle of free enterprise governs these activities.
