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by freedomben 2765 days ago
Not GP, but if you are a person/business that has a lot of BTC, it's not hard to see the value here. When Dish Network added BTC payment as an option, it was really nice for me.

For someone who doesn't do the bitcoins, it was probably just clutter on the website. It's all perspective.
2 comments
tptacek 2765 days ago
Exactly what is Bitcoin accomplishing in this scenario? Ohio won't actually accept them; rather, it contracts with a third party that immediately exchanges them for USD, which is what Ohio actually accepts. Ohio maintains no BTC inventory nor any exposure to Bitcoin. Not only that, but this apparently binds taxpayers to Bitpay's exchange rate.

What is this doing that you couldn't accomplish by simply selling BTC and remitting in cash?

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em3rgent0rdr 2765 days ago
Reducing friction when interacting with government. The alternative of using a credit card carries stiff fees (~2%) [1].

[1] https://www.irs.gov/payments/pay-taxes-by-credit-or-debit-ca...

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JamesBarney 2764 days ago
I doubt after you pay the transaction fee, and bitpay takes it's cut you'll be paying less than 2%.
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kasey_junk 2765 days ago
This program charges at least 1% fees. The FAQ is fairly nebulous on the max fee.

Seems like there are easier ways to get payment processing fees lowered for Ohio than exposing tax payers to currency markets.

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smsm42 2762 days ago
That sounds suspiciously like the owner of the conversion service knew somebody within Ohio government's IT management, for values of "knew" ranging from "friends" to "bribed".
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sova 2765 days ago
PR
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smsm42 2762 days ago
You do realize that within a margin of about 0.1%, 100% of Ohio taxpayers don't do the bitcoins?
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drewmol 2760 days ago
Value of tax liabilities and distribution of the debtors current holdings (BTC vs $) is a better metric to evaluate acceptable payment forms. Ohio state income tax rate is ~ 0.5% - 5%. Lots of 'businesses' don't owe anything. Accepting BTC may increase the likelihood of {high $ debtors who hold primarily BTC } actually voluntarily submitting payments. These 'businesses' would otherwise will be difficult and expensive try and to collect from.
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