Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 132 posts

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#31

Post by stareatgoats »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #7

You know, I really would have thought that the Trump administration would have represented the "deconstruction of the administrative state": https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-wh-strategist-vo... . This is the common framework that justifies reducing the activity of the US State Department, generally relinquishing the status of the USA as world police, and a sort of libertarian view of personal liberties. In…

This may come as a shocker, but the principles that any politician claim sooner or later tend to crumble when faced with the realities of government. In the case of libertarian principles, what you find is that the core of the principles that survive the governing machine is but to relieve the rich of taxation and other cumbersome regulation.

The pretty principles live on in the rhetoric, but any objective onlooker can not avoid perceiving them as hollow to the point of deception.

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#32

Post by volta87 »

jeofken wrote: post #11
ve55 wrote: post #2

The way I usually phrase this situation is something like "The goals of a strong government are in direct opposition to the goals of most modern cryptocurrencies", and this is yet another subset of those goals where we can see the forces fighting against each other. I find it hard to convince myself cryptocurrency can win out in the long-term, as the more rules they find ways to skirt around via technology and decent…

With cryptocurrency you can travel across a border with a million $ worth, by just keeping a 12-word recovery phrase on you. Cryptocurrencies can never be stopped, and will more likely outlive governments than vice versa. Long live tax evasion! Vive la liberté!

The problem isn't tax evasion per-se, but rather logic inconsistencies.

For example, I've met quite a bit of people that don't want to pay any taxes. Yet they all want for them and their goods to be able to use roads for free, roads that are built and maintained with taxes.

That's actually ok: two incompatible goals just means you have to make a trade-off; welcome to engineering.

The problem is that none of them understand why they can't have both. In their minds, there is no trade-off to make, because they want both, feel entitled to both, and having both should be possible.

No idea why they are not able to understand that both things are incompatible. If there is some option that allows both that I am missing, they didn't manage to explain that.

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#33

Post by krageon »

bouncycastle wrote: post #19
jeofken wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With cryptocurrency you can travel across a border with a million $ worth, by just keeping a 12-word recovery phrase on you. Cryptocurrencies can never be stopped, and will more likely outlive governments than vice versa. Long live tax evasion! Vive la liberté!

I don't think you should be travelling with the 24 word recovery phrase. That one should be encrypted, backed up, and stored in a safe place

You can memorise it, that's still safe

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#34

Post by krageon »

Nextgrid wrote: post #17
alkonaut wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's cumbersome enough to use cash. My main problem with cryptocurrencies isn't that it's used by organized crime, but that it risks eroding public trust in the tax system. In high tax/high trust systems, that can be disastrous.

Is it a bad thing? Maybe taxes shouldn't be a thing, or should be low enough that it's easier to pay them than to dodge them? One of my problems with taxes is that it's essentially a free, automatically-replenishing pool of money for stupid politicians/government officials to spend recklessly (often prioritizing short-term wins that give them the most political clout) without the "pressure" a typical business in a co…

Very few low-tax countries are pleasant to live in for the average human being. Clamors for low tax are inevitably made by millionaires or misguided people that believe they might one day be millionaires. Taxes exist for a good reason and have a demonstrable positive effect on the societies where they are levied. Trust in politicians doesn't factor into that, as taxes are generally spent by government officials.

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#35

Post by csomar »

bouncycastle wrote: post #19
jeofken wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With cryptocurrency you can travel across a border with a million $ worth, by just keeping a 12-word recovery phrase on you. Cryptocurrencies can never be stopped, and will more likely outlive governments than vice versa. Long live tax evasion! Vive la liberté!

I don't think you should be travelling with the 24 word recovery phrase. That one should be encrypted, backed up, and stored in a safe place

Brain Wallet? You could easily memorize the 24 words.

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#36

Post by Nextgrid »

krageon wrote: post #34
Nextgrid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a bad thing? Maybe taxes shouldn't be a thing, or should be low enough that it's easier to pay them than to dodge them? One of my problems with taxes is that it's essentially a free, automatically-replenishing pool of money for stupid politicians/government officials to spend recklessly (often prioritizing short-term wins that give them the most political clout) without the "pressure" a typical business in a co…

Very few low-tax countries are pleasant to live in for the average human being. Clamors for low tax are inevitably made by millionaires or misguided people that believe they might one day be millionaires. Taxes exist for a good reason and have a demonstrable positive effect on the societies where they are levied. Trust in politicians doesn't factor into that, as taxes are generally spent by government officials.

> taxes are generally spent by government officials

By politicians I meant to include government officials; I've edited my comment to reflect that.

> Very few low-tax countries are pleasant to live in for the average human being

I agree, but I don't see the current situation being great either; I think the countries where high taxes are demonstrably increasing quality of life are outliers, and similarly you can increase QOL without a significant (or any?) raise in taxes.

My point is that in my opinion taxes break the typical market dynamics (that private companies are subjected to) that incentivise the entity (the company, or in this case the government) to spend their money in the most efficient way possible. Instead, taxes are seen as a near-infinite pool of money you can afford to burn with no ill effects because it'll just keep replenishing itself forever.

A recent example in the US another scam going around is the "Solar Roadways" which the electronics engineering community has debunked years ago and yet they recently secured yet another grant from the DOT to burn public funds on something that is known to not work (give this fact, the only reason it was chosen is because someone in power wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to show their support for sustainability/renewable energy/eco-friendliness to gain more political support).

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#37

Post by erk__ »

Nextgrid wrote: post #36
krageon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few low-tax countries are pleasant to live in for the average human being. Clamors for low tax are inevitably made by millionaires or misguided people that believe they might one day be millionaires. Taxes exist for a good reason and have a demonstrable positive effect on the societies where they are levied. Trust in politicians doesn't factor into that, as taxes are generally spent by government officials.

> taxes are generally spent by government officials By politicians I meant to include government officials; I've edited my comment to reflect that. > Very few low-tax countries are pleasant to live in for the average human being I agree, but I don't see the current situation being great either; I think the countries where high taxes are demonstrably increasing quality of life are outliers, and similarly you can incre…

If you pull up a list of countries by tax rates and some quality of life index they seem to be pretty corrolated so I would not say it is an outlier, where as the outliers are those with low tax and high QOL for example UAE, Oman and Qtar, but all those have a pretty significant income in another way compared to most countries.

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#38

Post by csomar »

TheChaplain wrote: post #3

I believe privacy advocates needs to be more involved in the financial sector for there to be any meaningful change and provide counter proposals to balance. The problem now is that a lot of cryptocurrencies are prime targets for money laundering, financing organized crime and terrorism networks. I often get shat on when mentioning that, especially by loud proponents of cryptocurrencies, but it is a real issue that m…

> The problem now is that a lot of cryptocurrencies are prime targets for money laundering, financing organized crime and terrorism networks.

I'd argue otherwise. A good (or successful) cryptocurrency should allow such transactions and be safe from the government. A good cryptocurrency should be ready for adversity and if it is censorship-resistant and really private, the government shouldn't have much power over any transaction.

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#39

Post by KLexpat »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #8
TheChaplain wrote: post #3

I believe privacy advocates needs to be more involved in the financial sector for there to be any meaningful change and provide counter proposals to balance. The problem now is that a lot of cryptocurrencies are prime targets for money laundering, financing organized crime and terrorism networks. I often get shat on when mentioning that, especially by loud proponents of cryptocurrencies, but it is a real issue that m…

Throughout all of human history people used private forms of money like cash. Why is it that suddenly only now it is a disaster to have financial privacy because of "crime"?

The idea of fiat currency only works when people are forced to participate in it. The petro-dollar was fairly obvious in the late 20th century, but now things are more subtle.

The key thing is ensuring that all exchanges of wealth only occur within a currency controlled by the authorities. They are not really concerned about minor instances of tax avoidance; the primary concern is that large scale economic activity could start occuring outside of a government controlled credit market place.

The goal here is to ensure that Bitcoin is financed in USD, and that the finance of this asset remains in government controlled credit. You can borrow bitcoin sure, but its in USD credit markets.

You can't at this stage get a bitcoin-mortgage, or a bitcoin credit card that never references USD. Imagine if you could transact in bitcoin all the time, and post assets as collateral to get bitcoin loans with interest pay-able in bitcoin. This would be a point where people stop measuring bitcoin in USD and start measuring things in bitcoin, and is something the US regulators seek to avoid at absolutely all costs.

Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance

#40

Post by KLexpat »

vmception wrote: post #12
ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throughout all of human history people used private forms of money like cash. Why is it that suddenly only now it is a disaster to have financial privacy because of "crime"?

they have to clamp down on financial privacy because they invented financial crimes the federal crime of "money laundering" requires the state to use public resources in whitelisting every transaction, and having the entire population stigmatize the concept of ever having money themselves let alone actually moving it and that 50 year old absurdity is pretty much what they are doubling down on

Capital Gains Taxes + Inheritance Taxes (more so in the UK) + Inflation means that all wealth is gradually eroded. The stigmatisation is to prevent transactions occurring outside of the taxation and government credit system.
Post reply on HN