Bitcoin Forum

Citizens and businesses based in Zug will be able to pay their taxes in either Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH).
The move does not represent much of a change as the tax office and Zug-based crypto broker have collaborated to convert payments in cryptocurrency into Swiss francs.
Perhaps the latest move will give a boost to more adoption and knowledge of how to make payments in cryptocurrencies even though I think a small portion will pay their taxes in BTC or ETH.

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/swiss-canton-zug-accept-taxes-crypto-bitcoin-ether-2021

Without a doubt, this will push another avenue for crypto adoption. Since many people are now looking for alternative ways of payment and go cashless, if crypto will be there in front of them as an option, then I guess they will surely look into it. For new crypto users, at first they will have hard time understanding it. But once they made the first transaction, the next one will be easier for them. And if they have nice experience, they will endorse it also to others. Word of mouth is one of the best marketing tools out there.

meh.

it's about as much of a push for adoption as at&t adding an option to pay your phone bill through bitpay. actually it's much smaller---based on zug's population vs at&t's customer base, at&t rolling out bitpay support reaches hundreds of times more people.

anyway, after the initial excitement about "bitcoin" support wears off, you come to realize that everyone just skips over it in the dropdown menu and pays with their credit/debit card or bank transfer as usual. and when you get right down to it, even if you do use bitcoin to pay your taxes (i recommend against it!) they are just getting paid swiss francs by a payment processor.

I thought Zug had made it possible a long time ago, at least that was the news 3 years ago. As far as I can see, only the amount has changed from a maximum of 200 CHF to 100 000 CHF, and it should be added that another city in Switzerland made it possible in early 2018 (Chiasso).

It is logical that such things are starting to happen in a country that relies primarily on the finance and banking sector.

LOL, if you are talking about cashless society, Switzerland is way ahead of the game, and I think 90% of them are going cashless already. But since the advent of crypto and blockchain, they somewhat embrace it and then implement it to their system. So there's nothing new here for them, they just evolved and used it as an options for their population in paying taxes.

Well, at the very least this is a sort of a statement that goes like "Bitcoin is not just a criminal or a pedophile's money but one which is legally accepted." This is a nice way of acknowledging Bitcoin, of recognizing its viability.

However, I would imagine that paying taxes in BTC or ETH would be highly like trading's 'buy low sell high.' I'm inclined to think that tax paying in BTC and ETH would be like 'pay in crypto when high and avoid when low.'

At least for those who really understand what bitcoin is, specially liberal nations such as Switzerland, this is really recognition as what crypto can be, without the negativity surrounding it.


If given the options, then it is better to pay with fiat I guess, and just preserved your bitcoin or ethereum for the long haul. But then again, others could argue that crypto is another form of money, hence they can use it regardless if the price is high or low.

News headlines again, the way the news was written makes you think that this thing is happening for the first time, I did not do the research because I think Zug Accept Taxes in Bitcoin for the first time and not just increasing the maximum of 200 CHF to 100 000 CHF.

The news has a bad side, which is paying the full amount in BTC, I do not think that a person will risk that, especially since the next year may witness a rise in the price.

Hihihi, Deja Vu

NOV 25, 2018
Ohio ‘Appears’ to Be First US State to Accept Bitcoin for Taxes, WSJ Report! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5075984.0)


A bit later:
Ohio businesses can no longer use Bitcoin to pay taxes – but will they care?
 (https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/10/03/ohio-suspends-bitcoin-tax-payment-system-no-one-cares-ohiocrypto/)

To be fair though I'm not sure whether Ohio can compare to Switzerland as far as anything finance related is concerned. If money were a country it'd be Switzerland.

From what I see in the article Zug is considered to be a "cryptovalley" of their country since a considerable amount of Crypto-based companies are situated their so maybe that's the reason why they started accepting crypto as a payment for their taxes as obviously their state is much more involved in the crypto industry and they are just adjusting to what they have. For them converting it to Fiat I don't see anything wrong here as it is payment for tax in the first place, I as a citizen in that situation where I will pay tax with my crypto will see that it will be more wrong if they somehow hodl my payment and maybe profit from it more.

The only benefit cryptocurrency is going to have from such move is - increase in credibility! While I don't expect a lot of people will be paying out their taxes with bitcoin or Eth but it will certainly boost the credibility of cryptocurrencies in that area. It is a great step considering we are going through a dark time when majority of the hacking incidents are somehow linked to cryptocurrency.

Not much helpful in terms of adoption but definitely helpful in terms of credibility!

Of course not but we're still talking about a US state, with nearly the same GDP as Switzerland and is not some backward state with zero business. And even if it was, let's analyze a bit what those numbers mean. It's either that a state can function pretty well with only 10! out of nearly one million small businesses dealing with crypto, that is 0.001% or that, which seems just as plausible, even crypto-related business chose to pay via traditional ways.
And Zug, forget the city, the entire canton is about seven times smaller than Columbus alone.

The number will tell, but lately, I have a feeling bitcoiners are more willing to cut their own fingers than touch their stash.