Columbus, State Capital of Ohio
The biggest wave of crypto adoption in this bearish market run is arguably taking place in Ohio, where the State’s tax agency has approved the payment of taxes using Bitcoin.
The new mode of payment means that anything ranging from taxes generated by self-employed people and employee withholding tax can be paid off by transferring Bitcoin to the agency.
A dedicated website, Ohiocrypto.com has been created for this purpose and businesses can start using it as soon as Monday according to the notice.
According to Ohio State treasurer, the region hopes that accepting crypto payments is a way for them to show their support for innovative technology, even though the initiative means they are now the first US state to approve Bitcoin for paying taxes.
Arizona, Georgia, and Illinois are some of the other regions to have considered introducing Bitcoin for taxpayers, but the move reportedly didn’t make it past the first stage and was rebuffed by state legislators.
Now, Ohio has found a way to incorporate Bitcoin and is working with the crypto startup Bitpay, who will process the payment and convert the coin to fiat for the tax agency.
The fact that Ohio has shown good faith in Bitcoin at a time when the market is facing a heavy bearish era highlights an important fact – Bitcoin has many use cases, and for this reason, a bounce-back is almost certain to happen at some point.
According to the WSJ report, there are also plans to narrow down the “pay tax with crypto movement” in the State to include individual tax filings. This will effectively put Bitcoin in almost the same bracket as fiat money and likely encourage more people to try out the option.
It will be interesting to see how businesses in Ohio respond to the option of paying taxes in Bitcoin. Maybe it could move other states to find a space for the new asset class.