- The Ohio crypto bill, introduced by Senator Niraj Antani, proposes allowing crypto payments for state and local taxes
- The bill revisits a 2018 proposal that wasn’t pursued by the Ohio State Board of Deposits
- Critics worry the Ohio crypto bill could raise privacy concerns by linking wallet addresses to taxpayer identities
On Monday, Ohio Senator Niraj Antani revealed a new bill that would let taxpayers in the Buckeye State pay for state and local taxes using cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
“Cryptocurrency is not just the future, but it’s the present of our 21st-century economy. We must encourage innovation and free enterprise in Ohio,” Antani said
Ohio Crypto Bill
Critics point out that this bill could allow the government to link wallet addresses with taxpayer identification, raising serious privacy concerns for crypto investors.
Ohio had the opportunity to allow crypto for tax payments back in November 2018, but it never materialized. Approval for the crypto tax payment was left to the discretion of the Ohio State Board of Deposits at the time, which opted not to advance the bill.
“The State Board of Deposits should have acted, and since they haven’t, we will,” Antani said.
A timeline is not set for the bill, which still awaits committee assignment and review before receiving a full vote of Ohio’s bicameral legislature and landing on the governor’s desk for a signature. Should it not pass the legislature by the end of the Ohio legislature’s two-year session this December, it will likely die.
Ohio is not alone in considering cryptocurrency as an option to pay taxes. Colorado began accepting crypto as payment for taxes last year, but it does not allow refunds to be issued in the form of digital assets.
Across the country in Florida, it was Governor Rick DeSantis who, last year, openly expressed interest in opening the state up to business taxes in bitcoin—but thus far, the idea has not been implemented. On the local level, some jurisdictions have plunged, at least virtually, into cryptocurrency payments for taxes, and among others, residents have been able to pay with crypto since 2018 in Orlando, Florida.
Conclusion
This new crypto bill in Ohio represents a larger step toward modernizing digital assets used for tax payments. Facing some degree of legislative and privacy concerns, the proposed bill is a potential gateway to wider cryptocurrency adoption for state-level transactions—as seen recently in the states of Colorado and Florida.
