A Japanese exchange by the name of Coincheck has partnered with Recruit Lifestyle. This summer, bitcoin will become a payment option at stores that use Recruit Lifestyle. 260,000 food establishments and other retail stores nation wide will be accepting bitcoin.
This is a Major Development for Bitcoin being more accepted all over the Earth..
This is huge. 1 exchange linked 260,000 stores... thats amazing... imagine being a tourist and going to japan... you get to avoid the exchange rate fee which are like up to 5% at the airport... this will probably happen soon in korea or some other countries.
I wonder for how long Japan and other governments will refuse to collect VAT for cryptocurrency payments. Probably when VAT revenue start to drop significantly.
can they add a VAT on bitcoin purchases?
Sure, they can force commerces to pay VAT. It may be tricky to control if they really pay the VAT, but not much difficult than cash payments.