You probably thought the day would never come, but we are about to surprise you by saying that cryptocurrency has made it into the tax payment system in the state of Ohio, in the USA. To be more precise, currently, the privilege of paying taxes in BTC is restricted to businesses alone, with plans for individual entities to come into play in the future.
However, Ohio’s tax law appears to be somewhat perverted. The thing is that although companies make their payments in BTC, there is a middleman in the face of BitPay that makes
the conversion to US dollars which are subsequently sent to the corresponding institution in Ohio.
Some express opinions that this kind of a law is nothing more than a mediocre publicity trick in the pursuit of the state of coming across as crypto-friendly. In contrast, others maintain that Ohio’s innovative tax law is likely to serve as a spur for other states to not fall behind and jump onto the bandwagon and thus they see it as a significant step forward to the mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrencies.
Zug: Official fees in BTC
While Ohio is certainly pushing the envelope in terms of the adoption of cryptos, the state is not a pioneer in including cryptocurrency as an option while making a legal government fee.
Zug, a town in Switzerland, embarked on testing BTC as a payment method for government services back in 2016. The trial law lasted until the end of the year and allowed to make any kind of payments, except taxes, as long as the figure didn’t exceed 200 Swiss francs (203 US dollars). It, therefore, meant that the services that could be paid with BTC comprised of things like money penalties, as well as administrative and license fees.
The number of people who took advantage of the law in question was not big though. For instance, individuals who paid with Bitcoin over the period from July – November amounted to a dozen. Although it might have appeared that the whole idea fell through, the mayor was quite satisfied with the result. He maintained that it helped to encourage the development of the FinTech industry in Zug, and as a result, it contributed to the overall promotion of the town.
Down the road
‘Taxes in BTC’ has become a buzzphrase in some other states. That said, currently, the legislation that will allow paying taxes in BTC is under the government’s consideration in Illinois, Giorgia, and Arizona.
Although all these look like baby steps on the way to the virtual currency society, they have been made and the seeds are sewn for other governments across the globe to follow.
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