The western Argentine province of Mendoza — the fifth most populous in the country — now accepts cryptocurrency as a payment option for taxes, the Mendoza Tax Administration (ATM) announced on Saturday.
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Fast facts
- Mendoza’s roughly 2 million residents will now be able to pay taxes using stablecoins including DAI and USDT from any crypto wallet.
- This move follows the country’s capital city Buenos Aires announcing that it would accept crypto for payment of taxes in April, though no official start date has been announced.
- The ATM’s website will generate a QR code for taxpayers to scan with their crypto wallet to facilitate the transaction, which will then be converted into pesos.
- The South American country experienced roughly 70% year-on-year inflation in July, and the ATM’s decision to embrace stablecoins could be to mitigate this inflation, as the U.S. inflation level was only 8.5% for the same month.
- Fellow Latin American country El Salvador became the first country in the world last year to accept Bitcoin as legal tender in part to address a high level of “unbanked” population in the country.
- Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernandez, has previously expressed an openness to following El Salvador’s lead last year, but little progress has been made to do so since.
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