Residents of the Swiss canton of Zug will soon be able to utilize Bitcoin or Ethereum to pay their tax bills.
New reports on official action in this part of the world show taxing authorities working with partners like Bitcoin Suisse AG to allow the district’s population of about 127,000 people to draw from their crypto assets when it’s time to pay their taxes.
Marie Huillet at Cointelegraph reports the service will accommodate up to 100,000 swiss francs’ worth of cryptocurrency payments in lieu of hard fiat cash for tax payment purposes.
The background for this news is that Zug has been in the public eye for a while as a mecca for blockchain innovation.
It might be embarrassing to some parties in the U.S. that although America boasts California’s Silicon Valley as the cradle of many kinds of tech innovation, the Swiss has what’s known as “Crypto Valley,” the preeminent cryptocurrency community. The new tax program consolidates Zug’s edge.
“Economic players are drawn to the region’s relatively low tax rates and its suitability for new technologies, and they are certainly making the most of the canton’s infrastructure,” writes Le Journal Internationale. “The blockchain scene in Zug is currently home to over 250 firms, according to statistics from Crypto Valley Labs.”
The new tax registry option works on a precision program to convert value.
“Bitcoin Suisse AG provides the Zug Commercial Registry Office with a Payment Gateway or a Merchant Site for payment processing,” writes a blogger at Goldblum and Partners. “Besides, the Office can issue invoices via Payment Gateway, which can be paid by customers with Bitcoin and Ether. After an invoice is paid, the corresponding amount in cryptocurrency is automatically changed by Bitcoin Suisse AG to Swiss francs and then transferred to the Commercial Registry Office. Thus the Office receives exactly the amount of Swiss francs which it has invoiced to its customers.”