New Zealand tax office makes it legal to pay salaries in crypto

New Zealand’s tax office, the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), has made it legal to receive salaries in cryptocurrency, CoinDesk reports. In its August bulletin, the agency published a new ruling under the Income Tax Act that states that an employee can be paid salaries in crypto assets as long as the payments are for services performed under an employment contract, are for a fixed amount and form a regular part of the employee’s remuneration. The crypto asset being paid must also be able to be exchanged for fiat currency, and must have the primary purpose of acting like a currency or be pegged to the price of one or more fiat currencies, the IRD states.