California Reminds Businesses to Apply Sales Taxes to Digital Currency Transactions
It's common sense, but it still deserves the title of a "Special Notice". We are, of course, referring to a memo recently released by the California State Board of Equalization (BOE), which reminds business owners in the Golden State that they are not exempt from charging sales tax on virtual currency transactions simply because the IRS does not deem bitcoin and the like as legal tender. A growing number of businesses and individuals are now accepting virtual currencies (for example, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, or Peercoin) as a payment method for their sales of goods and services.....
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California may have a wealth of tech-savvy entrepreneurs anxious to create new businesses. But the state's lawmakers aren't doing them any favors as they move forward on a virtual currency license that saddles businesses with fees, paperwork and uncertainties. Businesses would have to pay a non-refundable fee of $5,000 just to apply for the license from the Commissioner of Business Oversight. Which makes one wonder about the bill's real intent. The Golden State's lawmakers aren't taking any time to study the ramifications of New York's recently-released Bitlicense before requiring their....
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There are many ways for an establishment in corporate industry to prevent new market competitors. The most common way in current Western culture is through "influencing" local or federal legislators to craft laws that would make creating innovations, new competitors, and small businesses less than feasible. Make the paperwork and regulation so time-consuming and onerous to process that new businesses will exhaust all their resources. Or you can make the costs involved in entering a market so large that only the established corporations can participate. Regulators in The State of California....