coinfomania.com
Jared Polis, Governor of the U.S. state of Colorado, has confirmed that the state will soon start accepting cryptocurrencies for tax payments.
According to Polis, residents in Colorado will have the option of paying their taxes in cryptocurrencies by summer. A few months after that, though, the state will begin accepting crypto payments for all purposes, including for hunting licenses and driver’s licenses, amongst others.
“We will be accepting crypto to pay state taxes and other transactions in the state by the end of the summer. We are really excited to move that along,” Jared said.
He added that for consumer convenience, the state will be accepting a wide variety of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether.
Colorado will not hold crypto collected from tax payers
Polis also mentioned that the state is looking for crypto companies to partner with. Per his statement, crypto companies will be the transaction layer needed to convert crypto payments to dollars.
He noted that even though Colorado will be accepting payments from cryptocurrencies, the state will not be holding digital assets.
Stating reasons for this, Polis said: “Our budget is still in dollars, our expenditures are still in dollars and of course, we do not want to take the spectacular risk of holding crypto…They (the crypto payments) will be converted into dollars.”
To aid the process of converting cryptocurrencies to dollars, the state will need to partner with some crypto companies who will act as transaction intermediaries, noted Polis.
Does Jared Polis Hold Cryptocurrencies?
Polis said that he currently does not hold any cryptocurrencies. He admits to playing around with some (unnamed) cryptocurrencies though, buying them and then selling them thereafter.
Regardless, the governor added that “crypto blockchain technology is very much here to stay and is always going to be a bigger phenomenon in five or ten years.” The objective for Colorado is to become the “D-center of the crypto economy.”
Unlike Polis, however, a significant number of high-profile individuals own cryptocurrencies. For example, the Mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, announced plans to start collecting his paycheck in bitcoin last year.