Options
BerkShares currency...illegal?
291fifth
Posts: 24,681 ✭✭✭✭✭
I just read an article about BerkShares currency being used in western Mass. They are sold for 90 cents on the dollar and are accepted by some local businesses.
Isn't this type of currency illegal due to laws passed (or enforced) during the era of local scrip usage in 1933?
Isn't this type of currency illegal due to laws passed (or enforced) during the era of local scrip usage in 1933?
All glory is fleeting.
0
Comments
Jerry
I guess this currency would fall under that category if it isn't legal tender and one can use it for goods or services.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
<< <i>maybe...didn't disney world issue "mickey bucks"...or some such non-sense? >>
You are thinking of Disney Dollars.
Why would it be illegal? It is essentially just a gift certificate but in a different form.
-Fuzz
<< <i>Bartering is still considered in the tax code when determining one's responsibilities as a law abiding citizen for the purposes of "income taxes". >>
A lot of people don't know this. I know of a lot of lawyers who have said to me that they do legal services and get landscaping work done on their house in exchange, for example. I told them that is a taxable transaction, and they tried to tell me "no way". I hope the feds don't find out about what they're doing.
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Berkshire Quote
<< <i>A lot of people don't know this. I know of a lot of lawyers who have said to me that they do legal services and get landscaping work done on their house in exchange, for example. I told them that is a taxable transaction, and they tried to tell me "no way". I hope the feds don't find out about what they're doing. >>
I think most competent businesspeople do, but just "play dumb" or raise the "Sgt. Schultz" defense when questioned about it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070619/lf_nm/usa_economy_berkshares_dc
My Odds&Ends eBay Stuff to fuel my coin habit (No Coins)
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
My Odds&Ends eBay Stuff to fuel my coin habit (No Coins)
>>
A lot of people don't know this. I know of a lot of lawyers who have said to me that they do legal services and get landscaping work done on their house in exchange, for example. I told them that is a taxable transaction, and they tried to tell me "no way". I hope the feds don't find out about what they're doing. >>
No way! The tax man ain't getting any of my Guatemalan landscaping consortium!
Proud Participant in Operation "Stone Holey" August 7, 2008
A witty saying proves nothing- Voltaire (1694 - 1778)
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor
does the truth become error because nobody will see it. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
The short anser is: local currencies are perfectly legal, so long as they follow all the regulations pointed out in the above link.
Modern local currencies made a comeback in 1991, with the introduction of Ithaca Hours. Since then, there have been quite a few introduced all around the country. Here a a few examples:
Burlington, Vermont
Madison, Wisconsin
Ithaca, New York
Corvallis, Oregon