Florida County to Allow Citizens to Pay for Government Services with Bitcoin
Cryptovest
Published May 16, 2018 01:02PM ET
Updated May 16, 2018 01:30PM ET
Florida County to Allow Citizens to Pay for Government Services with Bitcoin
It may be considered to be small to some, but the government officials running it could be considered ahead of their time when it comes to the willingness to try new things.
We’re talking about Seminole County in Florida, where residents will soon be allowed to pay for a wide array of government services with Bitcoin.
The county’s tax collector, Joel Greenberg, announced this week that his office is going to allow people to pay for county services with the crypto beginning next month. Services include covering fees for identification cards and license plates.
Citizens will also be able to pay their property tax bills with Bitcoin.
h2 Volatility concerns/h2One of the main concerns related to Bitcoin, as you know, is its volatility. For governments, the risk is very much a concern because if Bitcoin’s price slips, governments could end up not collecting the full amount of whatever they are collecting from citizens.
This could be detrimental to their budgets.
To address this issue, Seminole County is working with BitPay. To a local media outlet, BitPay’s head of compliance said the following:
h2 Governments warm to crypto/h2“The county tax office won’t face any volatility risk. There’s no risk to the taxpayer,” said Greenberg, who has often raised eyebrows since his 2016 election by moves including encouraging certain employees with concealed-weapons permits to carry a firearm openly as a security measure. “Blockchain technology is the future of the whole financial industry.”
Seminole will join at least one other government in the U.S. in allowing for Bitcoin payments.
We’ve reported to you about Arizona lawmakers drafting legislation that would allow citizens to cover their tax obligations with Bitcoin.
The bill is currently sitting on the governor’s desk, waiting to be signed into law. If he does sign it, which he is expected to do, it would make the western state the first in the U.S. to allow for such crypto-related concessions.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
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