New Hampshire bill to allow taxes to be paid in Bitcoin falls short

[alyssa85]

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2020/01/17/new-hampshire-bill-to-allow-taxes-to-be-paid-in-bitcoin-falls-short/

No, New Hampshire residents won’t be able to pay their taxes in Bitcoin  or cryptocurrency.

Public records show that a bill filed this time last year, which would allow government agencies to accept digital assets for tax payments, has been shuttered.

Had the plans gone ahead, the US state of New Hampshire would have theoretically been ready to begin accepting tax payments in cryptocurrency after July this year.

Last November, the General Court’s Executive Departments and Administration Committee voted in favor of ending the bill. The decision was further backed with a verbal vote earlier this month, The Block reports.

Legislators in New Hampshire have been trying to get the state to accept cryptocurrency for tax payments since 2015. But the bill has continually come up against resistance from the state’s broader administration.

It seems that the bill‘s creators, representatives Dennis Acton and Michael Yakubovich, were more keen on making New Hampshire the first state to accept crypto for tax payments than actually offering a service that residents are demanding.

Back in August 2018, Hard Fork reported that Ohio became the first US state to accept Bitcoin for taxes. The website OhioCrypto.com was set up to facilitate the 23 different types of tax payment.

However, in October last year, Ohio treasurer Robert Sprague claimed that because OhioCrypto.com was operating as a “financial transaction device,” its backend provider — in this case BitPay — should have been chosen through a competitive tender process.

Sprague said that BitPay’s selection may have happened unlawfully. Ohio subsequently suspended its cryptocurrency tax payment service.

It should also be noted that fewer than 10 businesses ever used the Ohio system. It’s unlikely that anyone in New Hampshire will be left wanting.

This is why cryptocurrency is not getting anywhere. What is the point of legislators doing loads of work to get a payment method on the books, as in Ohio, if only 10 businesses bother to use it?

We're going backwards partly because people are hoarding their cryptocurrency instead of using it.

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[gentlemand]

This is why cryptocurrency is not getting anywhere. What is the point of legislators doing loads of work to get a payment method on the books, as in Ohio, if only 10 businesses bother to use it?

We're going backwards partly because people are hoarding their cryptocurrency instead of using it.

It's a legislator's job to look beyond today and put stuff in place that nurtures tomorrow. And no one should be surprised there's little interest in spending in the last couple of years, let alone spending on boring necessities.

Maybe people never will get beyond hoarding, but the ability to pay tax directly would make a huge difference to people earning in crypto. No dicking around with exchanges, no bank account hassles.

Earning isn't really happening yet either but that's one of the prime factors in it becoming truly established.

[alyssa85]

Maybe people never will get beyond hoarding, but the ability to pay tax directly would make a huge difference to people earning in crypto. No dicking around with exchanges, no bank account hassles.

Oh I agree!

But unfortunately, people were given the option, decided they didn't want to bother using it. The Ohio people decided it was too expensive to maintain a system that no-one is using. And New Hampshire looked at their experience and decided not to bother either.

You see a similar story with ecommerce. A business enables bitcoin. No-one uses it, but it's a hassle to maintain the wallets or maintain the upgrades demanded by the payment processors. And when the costs exceed the benefits, it gets removed.

The biggest problem with bitcoin is the community. People talk about how lovely it would be to have this that and the other, but never actually support anything with use.

[gentlemand]

But unfortunately, people were given the option, decided they didn't want to bother using it. The Ohio people decided it was too expensive to maintain a system that no-one is using. And New Hampshire looked at their experience and decided not to bother either.

You see a similar story with ecommerce. A business enables bitcoin. No-one uses it, but it's a hassle to maintain the wallets or maintain the upgrades demanded by the payment processors. And when the costs exceed the benefits, it gets removed.

The biggest problem with bitcoin is the community. People talk about how lovely it would be to have this that and the other, but never actually support anything with use.

I get where they're coming from. It's stupid to keep a portal open that is totally ignored. But there is an element of if you build it, they will come.

However it's a bit like merchant adoption or its use as a currency, people got it the wrong way around. Those'll be the last elements to arrive, not the first. Merchant adoption probably peaked in 2014 and has been going gradually downhill ever since.

Before earning and spending becomes commonplace it needs to settle in the store of value phase. Right now it's still pure betting and it's understandable why people don't want to give up their bet for bread and butter stuff.

The tricky part is the actual demand may arrive someday with nothing in place to serve it as all of it was abandoned years ago

[alyssa85]

The tricky part is the actual demand may arrive someday with nothing in place to serve it as all of it was abandoned years ago

Yeah.

There is a cryptocurrency giftcard site in the UK that I buy supermarket giftcard top-ups from regularly, always paying in alts, simply because I want to keep the alt option going. (I'm scared if no-one uses it, it will get disabled).

Here it is:

https://www.cryptodechange.com/

As far as I can tell it's the only giftcard site in the UK that accepts litecoin and doge. And these things are very much "use it or lose it".

[rdluffy]

Unfortunately this is true, we all want cryptos to be accepted in every place on earth but we are not using this kind of payments
Is this case I think it's very specific and people don't want to risk something so serious and do some mistake, but if we want places accepting BTC we have to start using BTC as a payment right now

[moviebuff777]

Speculation is what is driving the price right now so I agree with your point. We need more real use cases for Bitcoin rather than just day trading and holding.

[blckhawk]

The problem with this is it's a loop that would never end unless the large companies initiates adoption of cryptocurrencies. Small businesses won't adopt something that the big players won't use. People won't use something they are unaware of, and would prefer to use existing fiat since they also has digital forms. And so such initiative would most likely be abandoned (10 businesses only) since businesses, especially those smaller scale, would hesitate to use a technology still not even used by more experienced international businesses as a way of paying taxes.

[Wexnident]

Not surprised by it, especially since it seems like the decision was backed by the fact that they would become the "first". It's all for fame or being at the front end of the news IMO, which isn't really recommended. Not only that, but there's also the issue of BTC being really volatile, and most traders are, as you said, holding instead of letting it circle around the market, not that they are at fault though. BTC, as of the moment, seems like a great investment and holding it would bring them profits, so who would spend them nonchalantly right? The best bet with these BTC/Crypto implementations to the globe is wait when at least the supply is left to about 5-3%. That way, the price would've most likely consolidated already, and traders would have no more reason to hold BTC because the market has already accepted a general price for it.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

We're going backwards partly because people are hoarding their cryptocurrency instead of using it.

Nah, I don't think so.  As the article said, it wasn't really a service people were demanding--and would you really want to pay your taxes with bitcoin?  I wouldn't.

When gold & silver were on fire back in 2010-11, I remember Utah making it legal to accept metals as currency or some such thing, and this sort of reminds me of that.  People aren't having trouble paying their taxes with fiat and I'm not sure why this bill was introduced in New Hampshire in the first place.  It just doesn't make sense to me--you can bet the NH government isn't going to want to hold bitcoin and I'm sure a payment processor would have to be involved as a middleman. 

No big deal IMO.

[stompix]

You see a similar story with ecommerce. A business enables bitcoin. No-one uses it, but it's a hassle to maintain the wallets or maintain the upgrades demanded by the payment processors. And when the costs exceed the benefits, it gets removed.

Somebody wanted to buy an electric car, but there were no charging stations so he didn't.
Some other guy wanted to start a charging station business, ....but there were no electric cars. 

People don't change their payment habits unless the older ones become more expensive and the new ones are cheaper and easier.
So, why would the people use bitcoin to pay their taxes, especially since you're nor really directly using bitcoin but a 3rd party that, charges also a fee?
Nope, no reason, that's why you have only 10 people paying.
It's more convenable via a card or a wire, does it imply less hassle than counting satoshis and live afterward with the fear that you've just left a track to your stash or your other spending habits?

Am I surprised? I would have been surprised if it would have been a thousand!

[gentlemand]

Am I surprised? I would have been surprised if it would have been a thousand!

For me at least it would be something I would vastly prefer when it came to tax paying time.

As it stands I would have to go to an exchange and sell, worry about getting frozen there, worry about withdrawing successfully, worry about the bank having a shit.

The alternative of one QR code on the tax page is way more appealing.

I presume these are property and state taxes rather than capital gains which is a rather different matter. But for the big stuff it would remove a whole lot of hassle.

[panganib999]

People were clearly against it. It's like putting the cart before the horse idiom. I don't know why they even started with crypto implementation when clearly, they could have resolved other things that the people need. The government serves the people, and the people serve the government, that kind of thing. Having the label as the first country to pay taxes through bitcoin isn't really anything that gorgeous in my eyes though. Not only that, the Ohio state clearly had issues with their backend provider. Add that to the issues of BTC being held by most traders, and most people having no access to it, clearly, implementation of BTC to the masses is still too early.

[squatz1]

But unfortunately, people were given the option, decided they didn't want to bother using it. The Ohio people decided it was too expensive to maintain a system that no-one is using. And New Hampshire looked at their experience and decided not to bother either.

You see a similar story with ecommerce. A business enables bitcoin. No-one uses it, but it's a hassle to maintain the wallets or maintain the upgrades demanded by the payment processors. And when the costs exceed the benefits, it gets removed.

The biggest problem with bitcoin is the community. People talk about how lovely it would be to have this that and the other, but never actually support anything with use.

I get where they're coming from. It's stupid to keep a portal open that is totally ignored. But there is an element of if you build it, they will come.

However it's a bit like merchant adoption or its use as a currency, people got it the wrong way around. Those'll be the last elements to arrive, not the first. Merchant adoption probably peaked in 2014 and has been going gradually downhill ever since.

Before earning and spending becomes commonplace it needs to settle in the store of value phase. Right now it's still pure betting and it's understandable why people don't want to give up their bet for bread and butter stuff.

The tricky part is the actual demand may arrive someday with nothing in place to serve it as all of it was abandoned years ago

While it does make sense in our mind to spend some resources on it. I still don't understand this from a government point of view. What do they gain from it? People are going to be paying their taxes either way, they don't have a choice, it's not like they're opening a new market or gaining new consumers of a product -- they tax people regardless of if they use bitcoin or not.

It sounds great in principle to all of this, but it's really a good deal of wasting resources and stuff when it comes down to the fact that people are going to be paying either way and have the ability to pay from a bank account / debit card / credit card (maybe in some areas)

[gentlemand]

While it does make sense in our mind to spend some resources on it. I still don't understand this from a government point of view. What do they gain from it? People are going to be paying their taxes either way, they don't have a choice, it's not like they're opening a new market or gaining new consumers of a product -- they tax people regardless of if they use bitcoin or not.

It sounds great in principle to all of this, but it's really a good deal of wasting resources and stuff when it comes down to the fact that people are going to be paying either way and have the ability to pay from a bank account / debit card / credit card (maybe in some areas)

It reduces friction. It's possible a few people might cough up where they might not have with the extra ball ache of returning to USD. Again it depends on the type of tax. I can well believe tons of people try to dodge capital gains. You can't really escape property taxes.

[johnwest]

I dont think it will ever change. Community members have been telling everyone to use crypto rather than hoarding it for years and years. There are allot of adoption which taken place in the past but they had to stop it because there was no one or only 1 or 2 users paying with it. We need to educate the people about this and encourage to pay with crypto.

[squatz1]

While it does make sense in our mind to spend some resources on it. I still don't understand this from a government point of view. What do they gain from it? People are going to be paying their taxes either way, they don't have a choice, it's not like they're opening a new market or gaining new consumers of a product -- they tax people regardless of if they use bitcoin or not.

It sounds great in principle to all of this, but it's really a good deal of wasting resources and stuff when it comes down to the fact that people are going to be paying either way and have the ability to pay from a bank account / debit card / credit card (maybe in some areas)

It reduces friction. It's possible a few people might cough up where they might not have with the extra ball ache of returning to USD. Again it depends on the type of tax. I can well believe tons of people try to dodge capital gains. You can't really escape property taxes.

I mean when it comes to the 10 businesses using it, they're going to be paying things like sales tax, corporate tax, payroll taxes, etc. I'm assuming the only things the state allows them to pay in bitcoin is going to be (if there is corporate tax in the state of Ohio, then corporate tax) and state sales tax. The rest wouldn't work.

Sales tax is pretty simple -- cause all you're doing is remitting the money that you collected from purchases on a daily basis.

Corporate Tax is where you COULD (not legally) fudge the numbers.

Will it reduce the friction? Yes, that's without a doubt tree for the small amount of companies that deal in crypto. Is it worth it for the government to spend these resources? I don't think so, as people are going to have to pay these taxes either way.

I'd love to see it happen, I just don't see the pros for the other side.

[adzino]

Unfortunately this is true, we all want cryptos to be accepted in every place on earth but we are not using this kind of payments
Is this case I think it's very specific and people don't want to risk something so serious and do some mistake, but if we want places accepting BTC we have to start using BTC as a payment right now

How come you are so sure that most of the people are not using this kind of payments? Are we to be blamed or is there some kind of fault in the system for which people are reluctant to use it? We should first find out what the real problem is, why are people hesitating to use crypto currencies as a form of payment and then solve this problems. This way we will be able to open up the world to crypto currencies and then people eventually will start using crypto currencies as payment as we get rid of the current underlying problem.

[TheCoinGrabber]

This is why cryptocurrency is not getting anywhere. What is the point of legislators doing loads of work to get a payment method on the books, as in Ohio, if only 10 businesses bother to use it?

We're going backwards partly because people are hoarding their cryptocurrency instead of using it.

I think it's really coz of the speculation. Even if the value of the bitcoin to be paid in taxes is the same as what would have been paid in fiat, people feel they're losing the opportunity to make more money out of it so they'd rather just plain with USD.

I for example can pay my bills online with bitcoin but I prefer only doing it when the exchange rate is high, else I just pay with cash (no auto-deduct for me).

[1Referee]

People should be hoarding Bitcoin. It's going up in value. This however doesn't mean that people aren't using Bitcoin. There is a vibrant peer to peer ecosystem where people conduct business with each other every single day. People just aren't really spending their coins on groceries and whatnot, and why would they? That's what debit/credit cards are for.

People have an incentive to spend that what loses purchasing power and that thing also happens to be the most convenient form of money for day to day transactions locally. Bitcoin hoarding sounds great to me. Everything you spend through centralized payment gateways such as ShitPay ends up on the market anyway, so more selling pressure.

Ask what the people think about spending Bitcoin around the $3000 low. They hate themselves. Replacing spent coins is something they haven't heard of or don't want to do.