This week the state of Ohio will allow companies to pay different types of fees and taxes through Bitcoin to companies and later to citizens.
It appears that Ohio will become the first state to accept tax payments through bitcoins, which shows clear support for the technology that is being talked about a lot but which had not yet been accepted as a method of paying taxes. It will be starting this week that Ohio companies will be able to enter the OhioCrypto.com website to register and pay from taxes on the sale of cigarettes to withholding of employee wages through bitcoins. The initiative will eventually expand to contributing users.
The state of Ohio allows companies to pay taxes in bitcoins starting this week.
The idea of admitting this cryptocurrency for the payment of taxes originates from the state treasurer Josh Mandel, who has been in office since 2011 and has been studying Bitcoin for several years. Mandel, 41, sees this program as a win-win solution for taxpayers and a great opportunity to “plant a flag” in Ohio for digital currency adoption.
"I see it as a legitimate form of currency," says Mandel, adding that he hopes other states will follow suit.
BTC is a cryptocurrency developed so as not to need trusted third parties or government endorsements when it was introduced ten years ago. In recent years, adoption among users and businesses of different sizes has increased, at the same time that it wins over detractors because it could be a headache for current economic-financial systems.
Despite everything, the Ohio measure would not give Bitcoin a legal status, but it does serve as tacit approval that until now had not been given for this cryptocurrency. Tax offices that accept bitcoins “help send a message that Bitcoin is a technology that can be used by anyone, by the bad guys but also by the government,” said Jerry Brito, director of the research firm Coin Center, with headquarters in Washington.
Source: WSJ
