US State of Georgia Debates Bill Proposing Bitcoin as Payments for State Taxes

Two Georgia state senators have put forward a new bill that could permit locals to pay their tax duties in Bitcoin, making this as the second such legislative attempt to emerge this year.

According to state senate chamber officials, the legislations submitted by senators Michael Williams and Joshua McKoon on Feb. 21, 2018 are seeking to adjust the guidelines governing the state’s department of sales, letting it receive payments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

“The commissioner shall accept as valid payment for taxes and license fees any cryptocurrency, including but not limited to Bitcoin, that uses an electronic peer-to-peer system,” the draft bill stated.

The proposed regulation in large part resembles another one that is currently shifting through the Arizona legislature. That measure, filed in January, has to this point attracted lot of attention from lawmakers in the entire country, setting up the possibility that Arizona could just become the first U.S. state to accept Bitcoin for the settlement of taxes and other government bills.

Like Arizona’s bill, the one submitted in Georgia also mandates that tax officials to convert those payments into U.S. dollars within a day of receiving them.

“The commissioner shall convert bills made in cryptocurrency to U.S.A. dollars at the prevailing charge within 24 hours of his or her receipt of this type of fee and shall credit the payer’s account with such converted greenback [dollar] amount,” it explains.

Regardless of the encouraging signs out of Arizona, there is no assurance that the proposed law in Georgia will succeed given opposition to such proposals in other states. As CoinDesk previously reported, a New Hampshire lawmaker’s attempt to introduce a similar bill in his state that would have allowed cryptocurrencies to be used in settlement of payments due to the state was shot down in a January 2016 vote.