Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What Is local currency?
Local currency is a system of trade where paper notes (scrip) are used for formal and informal commerce within a specific geographic region. Our local currency is called Clearwater Hours.
Imagine money just for the Tampa Bay area. Local currencies are supported by real labor, real goods and real services in our own community. One Clearwater Hour (1 CH) is roughly equivalent to ten federal reserve notes ($10). Clearwater Hours acknowledge the value of local labor and goods and highlight the time and effort invested by the seller. Hence, promoting the sound basis no one be paid less than 1 CH for an hour of work.
Clearwater Hours are not meant to replace federal dollars. Instead, they supplement dollars, making more money available in circulation. Currently, there is far less money in circulation than debt owed. This is the cause of widespread foreclosures, bankruptcies, and loss of national sovereignty.
Buy local and then some. Using Clearwater Hours is taking the idea of buying local one step further. When you use Clearwater Hours you trade with money that will far less likely ever leave local circulation (some may keep them as souvenirs). Money that stays in the Tampa Bay area circulates over and over again instead of leaking out to distant corporations and financial institutions. If 1 CH changes hands 100 times that’s an equivalent to $1000 in trade right here in our community, with zero leakage.
Why use a local currency?
Susan Witt, Education Director of the New Economics Institute, explains that by favoring regionally-based economies, local currencies are a tool for bringing a human face and sense of place back into our economic transactions. She goes on to say that this interweaving helps bring the community together in all its mutuality – ecological, economic, social, and cultural. Local currencies are a practical way to act locally in the face of globalization.
Who can benefit from Clearwater Hours?
How do I get Clearwater Hours?
The most common way to acquire Clearwater Hours is to become a goods or service provider, and advertise. When you agree to accept Clearwater Hours in your business we issue you 30 Clearwater Hours every 3 months that you can immediately start spending into the community. The amount to be issued occasionally changes to balance with the amount of currency in circulation with relation to the goods and services offered. Typically, 5 Clearwater Hours ($50 approximate equivalent) are issued for local businesses which agree to accept Clearwater Hours in return. Each local independent business that signs up will get 5 Clearwater Hours every 3 months that they remain a member. The more local businesses that accept Hours, the more valuable the money becomes. Additionally, currency must flow. The more places to which and whence it flows, the stronger the current in our local, commercial circuit becomes.
Other ways to acquire Clearwater Hours:
Are Clearwater Hours legal?
Yes. Similar currency systems thrive in dozens of communities around the United States. Law professor Lewis Solomon states in his book, Rethinking Our Centralized Monetary System, that there is no legal prohibition to creating a local currency system in the United States. The IRS, FBI, US Secret Service, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have all declared the printing and use of local currencies to be legal.
Criteria for legal local currency design:
How are Clearwater Hours taxed?
Treat your Clearwater Hours like federal cash. Each Clearwater Hour denomination is assigned a specific conversion value. Since the federal government considers supplemental currencies to be a cash equivalent, you must pay taxes on Clearwater Hours income just as you would for other income.
One Clearwater Hour is approximately equivalent to ten Federal Reserve Notes. It is unnecessary to file any special IRS forms for your local currency activity. When you receive a Clearwater Hour, ask yourself, “If this were a $10 bill, would I report it as taxable income and pay tax on it?” If the answer is, “yes,” then add $10 to your business income and pay tax on it.
How do I handle accounting for Clearwater Hours?
Clearwater Hours are handled the same as Federal Reserve Notes. Since the government views local currencies as a cash equivalent, no special accounting procedure is needed. However, because Clearwater Hours are not yet accepted for deposit at any area banks, you will need to account for them separately from your federal currency.
What gives Clearwater Hours value?
Just like all forms of money, Clearwater Hours have the same source of value as U.S. dollars: the faith and support of the people who use them. Our local currency is designed to value a person’s time and is backed by the goods and services of your neighbors who trade in Clearwater Hours. Barter existed long before money. People traded their time, energy, and products without banks, or money. Money is a technology which made barter simpler and easier. View Clearwater Hours as barter receipts.
Clearwater Hours have a much smaller geographic base than federal dollars, but the principle is the same. The more people who value them, the more useful they will be.
Whence comes the Clearwater Hours concept?
1991 was the inception of the modern North American model for an hours-based community currency in Ithaca, New York: the Ithaca Hours system now has over 2,000 individual and 300+ business participants. There is the equivalent of about $70,000 in circulation and about $2 million in transactions had been generated as of 2004. Ithaca Hours serves as a model for Clearwater Hours and dozens of similar local currencies established over recent decades around the United States.
What other local currency systems are in use today?
There are currently local currency systems in use in Canada, Germany, Austria, Mexico, Australia, The United Kingdom, and all of the United States of America. Wikipedia's list of community currencies in the United States.
Local currency is a system of trade where paper notes (scrip) are used for formal and informal commerce within a specific geographic region. Our local currency is called Clearwater Hours.
Imagine money just for the Tampa Bay area. Local currencies are supported by real labor, real goods and real services in our own community. One Clearwater Hour (1 CH) is roughly equivalent to ten federal reserve notes ($10). Clearwater Hours acknowledge the value of local labor and goods and highlight the time and effort invested by the seller. Hence, promoting the sound basis no one be paid less than 1 CH for an hour of work.
Clearwater Hours are not meant to replace federal dollars. Instead, they supplement dollars, making more money available in circulation. Currently, there is far less money in circulation than debt owed. This is the cause of widespread foreclosures, bankruptcies, and loss of national sovereignty.
Buy local and then some. Using Clearwater Hours is taking the idea of buying local one step further. When you use Clearwater Hours you trade with money that will far less likely ever leave local circulation (some may keep them as souvenirs). Money that stays in the Tampa Bay area circulates over and over again instead of leaking out to distant corporations and financial institutions. If 1 CH changes hands 100 times that’s an equivalent to $1000 in trade right here in our community, with zero leakage.
Why use a local currency?
- Local currencies can only be spent on goods and services locally, so the purchasing power stays within the community and boosts the local economy.
- Local currencies create opportunities for people who have skills to trade but are not employed in the current job market.
- Local currencies create opportunities for people to earn income doing the things they really enjoy. For example, a person may love making quilts, but find it difficult to earn money from that hobby in the regular job market. Local currencies create new avenues for earning more income from this type of skill.
- Local currencies bring publicity and tourism to the regions using them, and thereby, more federal money. Using Clearwater Hours organic money is fun for locals and tourists.
- Because local currencies cannot be hoarded in a savings account, they encourage local spending of both federal dollars and the local currency.
- Local currencies build and strengthen community relationships and self-reliance.
Susan Witt, Education Director of the New Economics Institute, explains that by favoring regionally-based economies, local currencies are a tool for bringing a human face and sense of place back into our economic transactions. She goes on to say that this interweaving helps bring the community together in all its mutuality – ecological, economic, social, and cultural. Local currencies are a practical way to act locally in the face of globalization.
Who can benefit from Clearwater Hours?
- Local merchants, who will attract more customers by accepting Clearwater Hours
- Full-time employees who want a second job
- Part-time employees
- Under-employed workers who seek income from their skills
- The unemployed
- The housebound
- Seniors
- Children and teens with skills to offer
- Entrepreneurs developing a part or full-time business doing something they enjoy
- Business people who want more customers
- Those who need to pay informal debts faster
- Anyone trying to save federal dollars for travel or other goals
How do I get Clearwater Hours?
The most common way to acquire Clearwater Hours is to become a goods or service provider, and advertise. When you agree to accept Clearwater Hours in your business we issue you 30 Clearwater Hours every 3 months that you can immediately start spending into the community. The amount to be issued occasionally changes to balance with the amount of currency in circulation with relation to the goods and services offered. Typically, 5 Clearwater Hours ($50 approximate equivalent) are issued for local businesses which agree to accept Clearwater Hours in return. Each local independent business that signs up will get 5 Clearwater Hours every 3 months that they remain a member. The more local businesses that accept Hours, the more valuable the money becomes. Additionally, currency must flow. The more places to which and whence it flows, the stronger the current in our local, commercial circuit becomes.
Other ways to acquire Clearwater Hours:
- Ask for Clearwater Hours as change when shopping at stores that accept them.
- Exchange your federal dollars for Clearwater Hours from a trader who has an excess supply.
- Accept them in payment for your labor or goods.
- Ask your employer to consider accepting Clearwater Hours by agreeing to accept Clearwater Hours as a percentage of your regular pay.
Are Clearwater Hours legal?
Yes. Similar currency systems thrive in dozens of communities around the United States. Law professor Lewis Solomon states in his book, Rethinking Our Centralized Monetary System, that there is no legal prohibition to creating a local currency system in the United States. The IRS, FBI, US Secret Service, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have all declared the printing and use of local currencies to be legal.
Criteria for legal local currency design:
- Must correspond to a specific dollar amount.
- Must not look like federal dollars to avoid confusion.
How are Clearwater Hours taxed?
Treat your Clearwater Hours like federal cash. Each Clearwater Hour denomination is assigned a specific conversion value. Since the federal government considers supplemental currencies to be a cash equivalent, you must pay taxes on Clearwater Hours income just as you would for other income.
One Clearwater Hour is approximately equivalent to ten Federal Reserve Notes. It is unnecessary to file any special IRS forms for your local currency activity. When you receive a Clearwater Hour, ask yourself, “If this were a $10 bill, would I report it as taxable income and pay tax on it?” If the answer is, “yes,” then add $10 to your business income and pay tax on it.
How do I handle accounting for Clearwater Hours?
Clearwater Hours are handled the same as Federal Reserve Notes. Since the government views local currencies as a cash equivalent, no special accounting procedure is needed. However, because Clearwater Hours are not yet accepted for deposit at any area banks, you will need to account for them separately from your federal currency.
What gives Clearwater Hours value?
Just like all forms of money, Clearwater Hours have the same source of value as U.S. dollars: the faith and support of the people who use them. Our local currency is designed to value a person’s time and is backed by the goods and services of your neighbors who trade in Clearwater Hours. Barter existed long before money. People traded their time, energy, and products without banks, or money. Money is a technology which made barter simpler and easier. View Clearwater Hours as barter receipts.
Clearwater Hours have a much smaller geographic base than federal dollars, but the principle is the same. The more people who value them, the more useful they will be.
Whence comes the Clearwater Hours concept?
1991 was the inception of the modern North American model for an hours-based community currency in Ithaca, New York: the Ithaca Hours system now has over 2,000 individual and 300+ business participants. There is the equivalent of about $70,000 in circulation and about $2 million in transactions had been generated as of 2004. Ithaca Hours serves as a model for Clearwater Hours and dozens of similar local currencies established over recent decades around the United States.
What other local currency systems are in use today?
There are currently local currency systems in use in Canada, Germany, Austria, Mexico, Australia, The United Kingdom, and all of the United States of America. Wikipedia's list of community currencies in the United States.
Unlike private barter networks and private monetary systems, Clearwater Hours are:
- Tangible: If currency isn't in your possession, does it truly belong to you?
- Not dependent on the privately-owned, unaccountable Federal Reserve currency-credit system and their fraudulent practices including fractional reserve lending
- Free of the mathematic fraud of usury, prohibited by Christianity, Islam (riba), and Judaism (nashak)
- Free of transaction or membership fees
- Not evidence of debt to the Federal Reserve (US Code, Title 12, Section 411, a federal law) which is odious and unachievable to pay, but instead denominated on time, a resource everyone has
- Initially issued as a credit for labor and production without previous investment or commitment
- Promoting a proven protocol protecting popular prosperity while demonstrably displacing designs of despotic disparity
- A human energy and talent transfer technology, encouraging local wealth preservation
- "Keeping Unity in the Community"