© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Ohio Allows Businesses To Pay Taxes With Bitcoin

photo of bitcoin symbol
EivindPedersen
/
PIXABAY
Businesses using Bitcoin to pay Ohio taxes will be charged a one percent fee.

Ohio is now the first in the country to allow payments in the digital currency bitcoin from businesses paying 23 kinds of taxes – from commercial activity taxes to gas and cigarette taxes to sales taxes to employee withholding taxes. 

The state wouldn’t actually take in and hold bitcoin – businesses would pay through the third-party processor Bitpay. State treasurer Josh Mandel says Bitpay, headquartered in Atlanta, is one of few companies that will quickly convert bitcoin into dollars.

“But hopefully, there will eventually be a company in Ohio or maybe multiple companies in Ohio that do payment processing for cryptocurrency.”

And Mandel says the fee will be 1 percent, which is a huge sum for large payments, but it’s less than the 2.5 percent charged for businesses paying via credit card. Mandel says the goal is to establish Ohio as a leader in blockchain technology, and to eventually accept other cryptocurrencies from businesses and individual taxpayers. It’s uncertain how many businesses might sign up.

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.