Dr. Hax on Nostr: I agree with the need, and the local, grassroots (aka decentralized) approach. I also ...
I agree with the need, and the local, grassroots (aka decentralized) approach. I also appreciate that you didn't say people wouldn't pay sales tax at a black market, but that they don't have to. Good choice of words!
I'm not so sure shorting local governments from tax revenue is going to win them over to make BTC legal tender. Maybe there's something here though. Things frequently aren't legalized until the laws prohibiting them are irrelevant (e.g. abortion in America), so maybe it's similar here.
Perhaps a point of leverage would be something along the lines of this:
"Hey, I sold 1M sats worth of goods this month, and I'd be happy to pay you the 90K sats for the sales tax."
Let them decide if it's worth it to them to accept bitcoin or perhaps even encourage its use. If they're willing to listen, explain the costs of trying to find a buyer, never getting market rate, having the additional burden of tracking cost/value at different times, etc. Turning sats into fiat takes effort.
This would make it clear to them that just accepting bitcoin payments for sales tax would benefit them, and reduce the burden on people, thus helping them win over the hearts and minds of their constituents.
I'm curious to hear from people who have tried these types of approaches. How did it go? What objections did you hear? What local officials were you able to gain as allies?
I'm not so sure shorting local governments from tax revenue is going to win them over to make BTC legal tender. Maybe there's something here though. Things frequently aren't legalized until the laws prohibiting them are irrelevant (e.g. abortion in America), so maybe it's similar here.
Perhaps a point of leverage would be something along the lines of this:
"Hey, I sold 1M sats worth of goods this month, and I'd be happy to pay you the 90K sats for the sales tax."
Let them decide if it's worth it to them to accept bitcoin or perhaps even encourage its use. If they're willing to listen, explain the costs of trying to find a buyer, never getting market rate, having the additional burden of tracking cost/value at different times, etc. Turning sats into fiat takes effort.
This would make it clear to them that just accepting bitcoin payments for sales tax would benefit them, and reduce the burden on people, thus helping them win over the hearts and minds of their constituents.
I'm curious to hear from people who have tried these types of approaches. How did it go? What objections did you hear? What local officials were you able to gain as allies?