With the efficiency that comes along with using bitcoins, the platform is now widely used not just by individuals who want to send and receive money but even corporations and other online merchants. In fact, more and more companies now are considering bitcoins to pay the salaries of their employees.
In Canada, many companies now opt to use bitcoins for their payrolls. A Canadian firm Wagepoint specializing in providing services to companies to have efficient payroll process online says that there is an overwhelming response from companies who are now using bitcoins to pay their employees and that many are interested to try this option.
How Does the Bitcoin Payroll Work?
To use Bitcoin payroll, business owners can hire a bitcoin payroll company that can help them make payments in digital currency. This is the specialty of Wagepoint. With their services, companies can have efficient payroll system using bitcoins. Customers do not need to handle bitcoins as the company gets its fiat currency and just process the payroll in behalf of their clients. Certain payroll deductions are made before the employees are paid with bitcoins. So, they can get their net salary in bitcoins.
Canada makes use of CAVIRTEX for the exchange while the United States, there is Buttercoin, getting $1.3 million worth of funding. Many tech firms are expected to follow the trend and pay their employees in bitcoin.
Millions of Venture Capital for Bitcoin Startups
With the rapid increase of the usage of digital currencies online, venture capital is also pouring a huge amount of investments to Bitcoin startup companies to expand their respective systems and infrastructures. More than $72 million was given for startups in the first quarter of the year. Among the companies receiving the capital inflow are online payroll companies. Just recently, Bitpay, the biggest payment process for bitcoins finally released a beta version that can be used as a Bitcoin payroll application for business owners and employers. The Canadian owned payroll company Wagepoint enables clients to convert their net pay to bitcoin. With the bitcoin payroll systems, users can exchange their dollars for bitcoins automatically and they can get the value of their dollars based on the prevailing market rate. Considering the growing popularity of bitcoins used in a different transactions and economic activities, companies are now eyeing to use bitcoins to pay their employees.
Legal Implications
But along with the appealing use of bitcoins for payroll systems is the fact that there are also issues that need to be addressed. For instance, not all countries recognize bitcoin as a currency. For one, Canada does not recognize bitcoin as currency. Being considered as an asset, there is not enough guidance and regulations. In terms of tax rules and policies, bitcoin salary payments are considered as bartered exchange for their respective services.
But according to experts, using bitcoins also has its share of advantages although it can be a bit difficult for some too. For employees who are paid in bitcoins, they can just have a spread sheet and record the values to keep track of their bitcoins as well as their