Nothing to do with tax. Election law. Looks like they couldn't come to an agreement on its status as commodity enough to approve usage for disbursement.



Neither draft A (Republican) nor draft B (Democrat) would have allowed bought Bitcoins to be used other than as investment; A (and our compromise proposal) would've allowed it for Bitcoin received as a contribution and kept unliquidated.

Also note that C doesn't say it's illegal, it just doesn't opine either way. In theory we could sue them to get a final answer; not sure whether we want to our have the financial support for it.

Either way, it's still a significant positive step towards "legit" use of Bitcoins as a means of exchange, which'll probably improve over time.

https://makeyourlaws.org/fec/bitcoin for more info.

Live hangout starts in 40 min. Public Q&A with me after if you want to join in.

(I run MYL PAC, which submitted this request.)

Crowdfunded / chosen political ads are actually part of what we're planning to do too — it's just not version 1. (And of course, we'd be very careful to obey all the regulations around it.)

Developers welcome. https://makeyourlaws.org/files/2min.pdf for the tl;dr of the stack & near term TODO list. ;-)

Depends on the state. ISTR that most are free (for PACs at least, not parties). (We haven't done state registrations yet; will probably get to that soonish though.)


I get where you're coming from, but I don't see how you could make that argument, legally.

The definition 11 CFR 103.2 / 2 USC 432(h)(1) clearly excludes Bitcoin wallets:


… and Bitcoin isn't tied to KYC regs, which is kinda the point of that definition.

They don't really screen it on initial acceptance … and you did get an RFAI even after you terminated because of the requirement that PACs have a depository account.

What happened with that anyway? I haven't seen any update on it.

Our request: https://makeyourlaws.org/fec/bitcoin/aor
FEC Draft Advisory Opinion A: http://saos.fec.gov/aodocs/201402.pdf
FEC Draft Advisory Opinion B: http://saos.fec.gov/aodocs/201402_1.pdf
Our summary & comments: https://makeyourlaws.org/fec/bitcoin#drafts
How you can comment: https://makeyourlaws.org/fec/bitcoin#comment  (deadline: Apr 22, noon Eastern)

1st FEC meeting is April 23. Our live hangout (which you can join once the meeting's over): https://plus.google.com/events/cg6fvrd55f4cvt9vi4uvtqockfk

Enjoy,
Sai
President, MYL PAC

Forgot direct link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bt88bwEqMKjV3-onS6_KDV7AIvyOJSLz9eLA_vC_McE/edit#

Also FWIW: there's been significant misreporting of the FEC decision on AO 2013-15 CAF.

They did NOT say that PACs can't take Bitcoin. Quite the opposite, they were more or less unanimous in saying that they can (during the discussion), and they're continuing to let the Libertarians etc accept Bitcoin. But CAF didn't ask *how* they should take it w/ adequate accounting standards, and they didn't answer a question CAF didn't ask, so they didn't sign off on a totally unexplained "we'll collect adequate info but we aren't saying how" request.

Which is why we're making ours.

Anyway, comment please and let us know what you think is good / should change / etc, 'cause we're trying to set up what is likely to be THE Standard Sanctioned Way to Accept Bitcoins if you're a political anything.

FEC deadlocked 3-3. We are preparing an immediate follow-up draft to propose the safe harbor policy we advocated in our comments, to be submitted in 1st week of January (if not earlier).

Comments appreciated.

[All links @ https://makeyourlaws.org/fec/bitcoin]

Filed comments on issues raised in the FEC's open meeting discussion.

Posted a page to track the links: https://makeyourlaws.org/fec/bitcoin

FEC decided to wait another week while they draft a new AO. Meeting audio: http://www.fec.gov/audio/2013/2013111402.mp3

Our comment has been posted (ungarbled copy here).

The FEC also posted two new draft AOs and extended the deadline to Nov 14, 9am Eastern.

Howdy all.

The Conservative Action Fund PAC has recently filed an FEC advisory opinion request asking whether PACs should be allowed to accept Bitcoins.

Request: http://saos.nictusa.com/aodocs/1245451.pdf
Comment by BitPay: http://saos.nictusa.com/aodocs/1246139.pdf
Comment by Bitcoin Foundation: http://saos.nictusa.com/aodocs/1246138.pdf
Draft AO: http://saos.nictusa.com/aodocs/201315.pdf

I found out about it a couple days ago, and we are preparing a formal response, which you are welcome to view and comment on here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1laZxfuna-AXsW9WC4b53s_Eb1YAg7pY-YQAGKcUE9iw/edit

We will be submitting this formally on Nov 12th. I would welcome your feedback on the above draft before then (on this thread, by email or inline in google docs).

I encourage you to submit your own comments for the record if you wish. If you would like to do so, just email ao@fec.gov, mention "AO 2013-15 Conservative Action Fund", give your name and the name of any group you represent, and explain your views in response to the above documents. The deadline is November 13th, 12pm Eastern time.

Sincerely,
Sai
Make Your Laws PAC
https://makeyourlaws.org

PS Forum mods: could you please move this to general->legal? (ETA: Thanks!)