Arizona Lawmakers Strip Crypto Mentions From Tax Payments Bill

Arizona's long-in-the-making cryptocurrency tax payments bill has been further stripped down - so much so that it no longer mentions the technology at all.

The final version of Senate Bill 1091 does not mention cryptocurrencies in any way, despite three previous versions of the bill all specifically including cryptocurrencies as a possible payment method, public filings show.

The version of the bill approved by both the House of Representatives and the State Senate does say that the Department of Revenue "May develop, adopt and use a payment system that enables the immediate remittance and collection of tax."

"The Department of revenue may design, develop and provide for trial demonstrations of the adaptation, application and use of technology to enable immediate remittance and collection of transaction privilege tax payments, at the option of the taxpayer, at the point of sale and for payments of additional amounts after audit."

The bill originally sought to enable Arizona's Department of Revenue to collect cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, for tax payments.

The bill was introduced in January and quickly passed through several committees before being referred to the House, as previously reported.

Committees in the House similarly approved the bill's passage, but it stalled at the beginning of March.

Representative Jeff Weninger, one of the bill's cosponsors, later told CoinDesk that the bill was being modified to become more neutral.

Following the revamp, the bill was approved by the House Rules Committee and sent up to Ways and Means.

Rather than enabling the Department of Revenue to collect taxes through cryptocurrencies, the bill directed the Department to study "Whether a taxpayer may pay the taxpayer's income tax liability by using a payment gateway." Possible gateways included bitcoin and litecoin, among other cryptocurrencies.