Colorado To Become First State To Accept Bitcoin (BTC) for Tax Payments

Colorado will become the first US state to accept crypto assets for payment of taxes, according to its governor.

In a new interview with CNBC, Governor Polis says that citizens of the Centennial State will be able to use digital assets to pay for state taxes sometime in mid-2022.

Polis also says the state has plans to accept crypto payments for other government-related fees as well.

“We expect by this summer, pretty soon, to accept crypto for all of our state tax-related purposes, and then we plan to roll that out across all of state government for things [that] could be as simple as a driver’s license or hunting license.”

Though the state will accept cryptocurrencies for payments, it does not currently plan to hold any as they are too volatile, according to Polis. Any crypto received by the state as payment would be converted to USD in real-time.

“We cannot be in the business of having exposure to a market where securities, including cryptocurrencies, fluctuate.

Our expenses are in dollars still. You never know what the future brings, but all of our expenses are in dollars, our budget got approved by the legislature in dollars, so when we talk about accepting crypto for payments, they would be converted back into dollars for our purposes.”

Polis, who first pitched the idea that Colorado residents should be able to pay their taxes in crypto last year, says that some cities within the state may follow in the footsteps of Miami and New York and create their very own CityCoin.

“We have this great state senator, senator Chris Hanson, who’s pursuing a digital token bill that would effectively allow state-created digital tokens to be utilized for state reserve purposes.”