It's probably a bit too soon for something like "pay my taxes in bitcoin"... but ultimately a government transacting in a transparent fashion such as this _MUST_ be a step in the right direction? No?
I don't believe this would add transparency. All they would likely do is immediately exchange it for USD. I don't think they would keep it in a wallet where we could keep track of their expenditures.
The payment processor does cloud the ideal, leaving me right back at "too soon". In this utopian place where I can see my local government's bitcoin balance sheet, it sounds great.
Free and open were the key points. Since the transactions are public they are independently verifiable. I am not accusing the state of lying or fraud, but this would be a check on that possibility.
Again it is not likely that Bitcoin would ever make up enough of the tax revenue for the thought to even be relevant. It was only in response to the transparency question.
How would revenues be transparent unless one or both parties tag the payment as "this is tax"? The payment processor needs to use a separate address for each incoming transaction, much the same as they do with their other clients now, so there's nothing there that marks a payment as being tax.
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It's probably a bit too soon for something like "pay my taxes in bitcoin"... but ultimately a government transacting in a transparent fashion such as this _MUST_ be a step in the right direction? No?
I don't believe this would add transparency. All they would likely do is immediately exchange it for USD. I don't think they would keep it in a wallet where we could keep track of their expenditures.
The payment processor does cloud the ideal, leaving me right back at "too soon". In this utopian place where I can see my local government's bitcoin balance sheet, it sounds great.
What follows is unlikely:
If the majority of taxpayers were to pay in Bitcoin, revenues would be transparent, which is a step toward a free and open public audit of budgets.
You know that you can get the NH budget and audit it yourself, right now, right?
Free and open were the key points. Since the transactions are public they are independently verifiable. I am not accusing the state of lying or fraud, but this would be a check on that possibility.
Again it is not likely that Bitcoin would ever make up enough of the tax revenue for the thought to even be relevant. It was only in response to the transparency question.
How would revenues be transparent unless one or both parties tag the payment as "this is tax"? The payment processor needs to use a separate address for each incoming transaction, much the same as they do with their other clients now, so there's nothing there that marks a payment as being tax.
I don't think so. I think widespread adoption aids in stabilizing the currency.