An Israeli high-tech company Spot.IM has requested a permission to issue salaries in Bitcoin for their employees which are located both in Tel-Aviv and New York. According to the Israeli newspaper Calcalist, the company was at the negotiation table with the local tax authorities for about a month, but they finally managed to find the middle ground and agreed upon the terms.
Spot.IM now plans to open an account in one of the crypto exchanges. Salaries will now be converted into bitcoins and transferred to employees' digital wallets. The conversion rate is going to be calculated based on the minimum and maximum results Bitcoin will show over the day on which the salaries are paid out. The company also promises to cover all the commission fees leaving their employees with a simple decision to either receive pay in bitcoins or fiat currencies.
The company also pledges that official benefits, taxes, insurances and deductions to the pension funds will be paid and contributed normally with the country’s official fiat currency, the New Israeli Shekels. But it’s worth noting that any gain from appreciation of the cryptocurrency will be taxed with a capital gains tax rate of 25%.
Spot.IM was founded in 2012 by Nadav Shoval and Yishai Green and has raised a total of over $40 million to date. Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is one of the company’s investors.
By Nadya Astam