Buenos Aires Confirms It Plans to Allow Citizens to Pay Taxes With Cryptocurrency

Horacio Larreta, the head of the government of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, confirmed that the city will allow its citizens to pay some taxes with cryptocurrencies. This is part of a digitization plan that the city has named “Buenos Aires+” that seeks to simplify the relationship the city has with citizens.

The government of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is planning to allow its citizens to pay some taxes with cryptocurrencies. According to local media, the announcement was made by Horacio Rodriguez Larreta — head of the Buenos Aires government — on a recent Zoom call. This initiative is part of a digitization push the city is planning to execute to broaden the access of citizens to documents and government services.

This plan, called “Buenos Aires+,” seeks to “simplify and streamline the link with citizens and the city,” according to Larreta. On the importance of blockchain for this digitization push (that seeks to automate 70% of formalities during its first year of implementation), Diego Fernández, secretary of Innovation and Digital Transformation, stated:

I believe that blockchain technology will give the government the possibility to make all its acts more transparent and encourage the participation of citizens in a deeper way.

This proposal is similar to the one presented by the government of Rio de Janeiro in March, which also announced it will accept cryptocurrency as payment for some kinds of taxes starting next year.

One of the key projects that the city is looking to complete is the implementation of a digital ID system, that would let citizens simplify document requests and payments made to the city. The system also strives to be interoperable, meaning that several organizations of the government might interact with it in different ways. This could also ostensibly help to streamline time-consuming errands amongst different government offices, giving the citizen the opportunity of managing all their tasks in the same system.

Other public organizations could connect their systems to this hub, allowing them to also make use of the data directly. On this idea, Fernandez stated:

People will have governance over their information. We are developing a platform so that they can know who is requesting their data and what they are looking at. Each of these orders will be made in an open blockchain-based system.

Fernandez concluded by stating his team aims to implement these data administration use cases for 2023.

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