Florida Is Working On Accepting Cryptocurrency As Tax Payments

According to Governor Ron DeSantis the state of Florida is moving towards enabling companies to pay taxes in cryptocurrencies.

DeSantis appeared in the press conference for the signing of a financial literacy curriculum bill. The Governor said that he had directed state agencies to get ready to accept crypto payments for taxes, especially Bitcoin.

DeSantis said:

“We are working – and I’ve told state agencies – figure out ways where if a business wants to pay tax in cryptocurrency to Florida, we should be willing to accept that.

We will accept bitcoin, we’re working on doing that, for payments in the state of Florida.”

DeSantis also noted a provision he pushed for in his most recent budget proposal that would have allocated funds to experiment with the use of blockchain to optimize state functions, but it did not pass the legislature. 

He made clear separation to his pro-crypto stance with state-controlled digital money proposals going around in Congress. According to DeSantis, in his view there are a lot of “hazards” related to a federally controlled digital dollar, elaborating:

“I worry about the amount of power that would give someone in a central authority to basically be able to shut off access to purchasing certain goods. We’d be in uncharted territory.”

The Governor is “very concerned” about the Biden Administration’s executive order on digital assets. The order pushes for the exploration of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and directing financial agencies to develop policy recommendations related to digital assets.