Chiasso, the Swiss Municipality, announces Bitcoin as a form of taxation payment

Chiasso, the Swiss municipality, has announced that its citizens can pay their taxes using bitcoin, starting January 2018. This statement is indicative of Switzerland’s position as a global leader in bitcoin adoption, with Chiasso attempting to compete with Zug as the dominant Swiss center for innovation.

Chiasso will start trialing the method, by accepting bitcoin as a form of taxation payment for values up to 250 Swiss Francs (CHF). Currently, Zug accepts taxation payments in bitcoin of up to 200 CHF, and received more than 40 payments since July.

Chiasso officials hope that the growing cryptocurrency industry would substitute the forgone tax revenues, caused by the diminishing local banking sector. Bruno Arrigoni, mayor of Chiasso, stated: “Chiasso is recognized internationally as an epicenter of a growing technological and economic growth for both the canton and in Switzerland”.

The mayor also met with numerous cryptocurrency entrepreneurs in the past few months, and claimed that eight start-ups have recently established headquarters in the municipality. In addition, local officials have taken several steps to attract cryptocurency companies, and considered branding the municipality as “CryptoPolis” to draw cryptocurrency startups.

Furthermore, Chiasso’s government announced the development of “in-depth courses in upper secondary schools” to reinforce the students’ cryptocurrency literacy, amongst other measures to foster innovation in its local cryptocurrency industry.