A Bitcoin Crypto-Tax??? Is it coming?
Good morning fellow Steemians!
It is I, Hypexals-Spiral, here with some news for you to ponder.
TAXES!
Olga Skorobogatova, of Russia's Central Bank, has announced plans to go forward
with legislation aiming to tax and monitor bitcoin in Russia.
Basically, they want to 'legally recognize' digital currencies, all around.
What could this mean for BITCOIN in other countrie?
Will Japan, China, U.S., and Canada follow suit?
My curiousity is, how will it be enforced?
Will you have to register your bitcoin (or other) address with the tax man / government,
for them to monitor you stored assets in that address?
One must ask themselves, "how much of a percentage will they tax me of my bitcoin, or
other recognized coin?"
The exchanges already require you to IDENTIFY yourself with proof of who you are and
access to your bank information for, what else, tax purposes most likely.
It seems that this move to monitor the transactions in the network stems mainly from the
criminal activity that bitcoin allows for.
Criminal transactions of this currency are being used for various thing from prostitution,
drugs, and other illicit items.
Good news is that Russia's longest operating online payment provider is planning to
introduce Bitcoin exchanges alongside the well-seated VISA and MASTERCARD.
This could be a BIG deal for bitcoin, not just in Russia, but in other countries too as
major payment providers move to accept bitcoin on the fly for payments.
Imagine if Amazon accepted it for payment or if Ebay allowed bidding on items
with bitcoin, litecoin, or ethereum.
Those days may not be far off. It could be 2018-2019 when we see mass adoption
of acceptance of crypto-currencies for payment.
Exciting.
All of this adds up to what the governments of each country will do in regards to
taxing the coins themselves.
Implementation is key here. They could really upset a lot of people here by prying
and grabbing at an encrypted digital wallet.
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What is your reaction to a bitcoin tax?
Are you prepared to pay it, or will the people put up a fight, and protest it?
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I think it's just a matter of time before governments try to get their hands on some of our profits,. I think this is part of the reason BTC was created, to prevent this exact scenario. I for one, don't think it should happen.
Then we have to be able to protest the legislation, right? Strike it down before it can become law. We should be able to accomplish that much right?
Agreed!!
If you earn money with anything, you'll have to pay taxes. But the tax must also be reduced in the case you loose. These mechanisms should also be valid for virtual currencies. But first this must be legalized.
This doesn't make me happy, but is fair ;-)
How do you see this being implemented? How will they tax Bitcoin of millions of people?
Today billion of people pay taxes.
When you registrate at a trading platform you have to tell your tax identification. After that all tax relevant informations will be sent to your fiscal authorities.
Very easy and not really big data ;-)
I sure as heck hope not, although unfortunately I do see it being rather likely in the future. But I keep thinking, to be able to tax something, surely it has to be exchanged into the fiat currency of the nation you're transacting in? Unless governments started accepting cryptocurrency as a form of tax payment, which seems unlikely. I keep thinking that as long as you transact in nothing but crypto, never exchanging into fiat for a purchase, then I cannot see how it could realistically be taxed. But I guess it really does depend on the country you live in and how tyrannical the government that rules over you is. We just have to stay ahead of the curve.
@savetheanimals
Suppose you buy a brand new car with like, 12 BTC. You'd have the new car, and the government / tax man would audit you for the car and likely say, "You owe us $XYZ in taxes for this purchase.
I guess I can see how they couldn't really track if you bought some headphones with 15 mBTC or a PS4 for 100 mBTC, it'd be damn hard for them to prove it. Right? Unless the SOMEHOW have capability to monitor your bitcoin address for a transaction...
So VAT when purchasing, etc.? I was thinking about Bitcoin / crypto as an income also. How could they tax that? "We take 20% of your Bitcoin" If governments started accepting Bitcoin as payment, that would essentially be mass-adoption!
Yeah it will be interesting to see the frameworks governments decide to go with. For now, in Canada at least, as long as you pay taxes on capital gains I'm sure everything is kosher.
Consumption taxes are a different situation though.
I can see a consumption tax being implemented easily enough, however, Japan's recent push for bitcoin adoption is happening without a consumption tax. That may be enough of a precedent as other countries move towards adoption. Another issue I see is the use of other cryptocurrencies to skirt the consumption taxes. This may end up being a game with the government similar to "legal highs" , where producers tweak the drug composition just enough to avoid an illegal classification. Perhaps quick exchanges to currencies not taxable, then back to bitcoin, could avoid this. The government may be in a constant state of catch-up if they opt for consumption taxes.
I'm not concerned about it though. The decentralization is the real core, disruptive, promising aspect of blockchain. As long as we have that, we're still moving in the right direction.
I agree, decentralization is key. Thanks for engaging.