The governor of a US state has announced that during the middle of this year residents will be able to pay their state taxes with cryptocurrency.
The announcement comes from Colorado governor Jared Polis who revealed a rough timeline of the roll out in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday where he said that he expects “by this summer to accept crypto for all of our state tax-related purposes”. Polis added that the acceptance of crypto-payments could also be used for other government-related expenses such as a driver’s license or a hunting license.
Pew Research reports that Colorado joins another 20 states that are looking into accepting some form of cryptocurrency legislation. Polis is no stranger to cryptocurrency as he was one of the first politicians to accept Bitcoin donations for his political campaign when he was elected into Congress in Colorado back in 2014. Additionally, Polis is also heading the effort of making Colorado the United States’ blockchain innovation hub.
“We expect by this summer to accept crypto for all of our state tax-related purposes. And then we plan to roll that out across all state government for things – could be as simple as a driver’s license or hunting license,” said Polis.
“It’s important that people know from a state perspective, we cannot be in the business of having exposure to a market where securities, including cryptocurrencies, fluctuate. In our case, we wouldn’t hold it as bitcoin, as ethereum.” Adding, “There will be an intermediary that would convert them, for our purposes, back to dollars”.
Credit to@tweaktown
