currency be the only thing accepted for payment of taxes. You're right, my point was even if the US Government didn't accept currency for the payment of taxes (and apparently US Notes were accepted by Tsy for payment of all taxes except for customs duties), Congress could still require state and local governments to accept them for their own taxes by declaring US Notes legal tender. Of course, passing a law and enforcing it are two different things. http://books.google.com/books?id=khU9AAA\\... I am indeed interested in this debate. The referenced Wikipedia article on Chartalism states: "Warren Mosler, L. Randall Wray and Bill Mitchell are largely responsible for reviving the idea of Chartalism as an explanation of money creation; Wray refers to this revived formulation as Neo-Chartalism." and "(Febrero 2009) argues that modern money draws its value from its ability to cancel (private) bank debt, particularly as legal tender, rather than to pay government taxes." So there is at least one other person, a professor at the University of Castilla in this case authoring "Three difficulties with Neo-Chartalism", who objects to the following assertion: "The demand to hold and acquire this government issued currency is driven by taxes levied by the state -- which typically can only be paid in the state-issued fiat currency." Febrero answers: "Apart from being unrealistic (Mehrling, 2000, p. 401) we find a counter-example for this logic in today's Europe." and "Note the following sentence in Wray (1998, p. 167): "Indeed, because taxes could be paid using bank money,