Taxumo

Dec 21, 2021

ONLINE tax filing and payment platform Taxumo Inc. has begun accepting cryptocurrency as a method of payment for tax dues in a bid to make it easier for Filipinos to comply with their tax duties. In partnership with payment solutions company Dragonpay Inc., Taxumo is also accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment for subscription upgrades within its platform. Taxumo CEO Eugene Jose Arboleda said there is a growing community of Filipinos who are interested in cryptocurrencies and it has also become a promising way to invest and generate income. As play-to-earn cryptocurrency-based game Axie Infinity became popular in the country, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) earlier reminded the public that gains from cryptocurrency are subject to tax. “This is a new development for us at Taxumo. But we expect that as the crypto community learns more about our new feature together with the pressure from the BIR on the community, we will see a rise of people using cryptocurrency to pay their taxes,” Arboleda told the BusinessMirror. Taxumo said cryptocurrency and decentralized finance have a lot of potential to become the main financial ecosystem that many people will operate in. “Given the introduction of Filipinos via Axie Infinity’s Play-to-Earn model, adoption is arguably a bit faster in our country than in others. If more Filipinos operate within that ecosystem, it only makes sense to bridge the gap and allow them to pay “real world dues,” taxes being foremost among them, via cryptocurrency as well. At the end of the day, we are enablers that turn the crypto payments into Fiat accepted by the government,” Arboleda said. Currently, this payment method is available for payment transactions that are less than P100,000. Once users check out on the Taxumo platform, they simply need to select “Cryptocurrency” as the preferred payment channel. Taxumo is now accepting cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, Ethereum or Tether as these three have high liquidity. Upon proceeding, the billing summary will show the peso amount to be billed and its equivalent amount in whichever cryptocurrency users will select. The conversion rate will be shown on the bottom of the screen, which is locked for 25 minutes and will not be affected with any page refresh as the session is retained. However, Taxumo said they are also looking into accepting other cryptocurrencies in the future. “It makes sense to add more cryptocurrencies in the future, particularly ones that have a higher adoption rate in the Philippines,” Arboleda said. “This is a field we are looking at very closely.”