What counts here as a digital asset? World of Warcraft coins? Steam collectible cards?
Sounds like it is a defined term: https://www.rpc.senate.gov/legislative-notices/hr-3684_infra...
Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
161–170 of 247 posts
Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
The math on the PoW energy FUD just doesn't check out. - At current levels, bitcoin uses very roughly 0.1% of global electricity but electricity only represents 25% of fossil fuels emissions so current PoW contribution to global emissions = 0.025%, ie a rounding error. This issue is currently a total red herring. Now let's project into the future. - bitcoin total addressable market cap if it took over the entire glob…
You make a lot of claims here but I don't see anything in your post to back up the numbers. I'm too lazy to go do this research myself so I'm left as a result with defaulting to disbelieving you.
I've been following this topic intensely for years and am very comfortable with these numbers but fair enough. I agree I should reference some official sources which I'll try and dig back up. Happy to discuss any assumption in closer detail though.
Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
The math on the PoW energy FUD just doesn't check out. - At current levels, bitcoin uses very roughly 0.1% of global electricity but electricity only represents 25% of fossil fuels emissions so current PoW contribution to global emissions = 0.025%, ie a rounding error. This issue is currently a total red herring. Now let's project into the future. - bitcoin total addressable market cap if it took over the entire glob…
You make a lot of claims here but I don't see anything in your post to back up the numbers. I'm too lazy to go do this research myself so I'm left as a result with defaulting to disbelieving you.
This is how most people go through life whether they believe it or not. In fact certain people will actually search for contradictory evidence in order to construct a logical scaffold that supports there current viewpoint.
Nobody uses evidence to construct a conclusion, everybody uses evidence to support a conclusion that was likely already made with little evidence. That's how the world works. This is 100% what the parent poster to your reply is doing regardless of whether the evidence he presents is biased or true. In short the parent poster likely already had a huge time investment or actual investment sunk into crypto BEFORE he started gathering all this info to support a pre-made viewpoint.
The question is, how do we present valid and logical arguments to the entire population when most of the population are too lazy like you and me to look stuff up or completely flip a viewpoint due to new evidence?
+1 for being self aware.
Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
#164Finally found the text of the amendment: https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wyden%20Lummis%... The amendment is short and explicitly notes that that the following categories do not count as brokers: (A) validating distributed ledger transactions (B) selling hardware or software for which the sole function is to permit a person to control private keys which are used for accessing digital assets on a distribu…
> (C) developing digital assets or their corresponding protocols for use by other persons, provided that such other persons are not customers of the person developing such assets or protocols.
The last qualifier seems poorly worded and becomes too broad. So (extreme example) a consulting agency developing a value-exchange platform to be run on a private chain in a customer corporate network would not be exempt. Bringing the act of building and selling software (or a SaaS, as long as the service itself doesn't custody user funds) is nonsensical. (B) is also a bit too narrow to address this.
Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also note that this crypto tax-reporting provision was slid into a huge bipartisan infrastructure deal. It really never should have been included in this legislation in the first place. Exempting actors in the crypto space who facillitate crypto usage without ever having custodial control of the funds makes a lot of sense. (Just like envelope manufacturers shouldn't have to register as money transmitters because peop…
> this crypto tax provision was slid into a huge bipartisan infrastructure deal. It really never should have been included in this legislation in the first place. Why not? The infrastructure is being paid for in part by this tax. They're fundamentally linked.
Updated my comment to clarify a bit: this wasn't a tax on crypto, it was about tax reporting requirements for certain actors in the crypto space.
(Because Bitcoin is psuedonymous it would have effectively be impossible to comply - functionally it was a ban on crypto mining in the US)
Even with the original language, this provision generates no revenue. It's only about data collection.
Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
#166Obviously HN community is down on crypto. This exemption is a sign that Bitcoin is getting closer to the mainstream of finance. Like most flanker-moves, Governments should be incorporating it in to their tax policies rather than shunning it. Cannabis is a good proxy, states can keep it illegal and not make tax revenue or they can legalize it, control it and tax it. The feds should do the same. Same for crypto, keepin…
Isn't crypto a direct threat to their power? If finance can't be tracked it can't be taxed. If it's mainstream more and more people could potentially switch to crypto, which would reduce their tax collections. Just theorizing. I have no idea if this would happen.
> Isn't crypto a direct threat to their power?
I don't know where this meme came from. If the U.S. government declared Bitcoin legal tender tomorrow, it would be monumental. But practically speaking, not that much would change. The Fed would buy Bitcoin the way e.g. the Swiss National Bank buys dollars and euros. And the Treasury would issue Bitcoin bonds or something, I don't know.
Cryptocurrencies currently make it easier to evade taxes, which benefits the rich, and easier to make money in a host of new financial activities, which benefits those near those activities, i.e. people with money and banks and first movers in the technology.
Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> this crypto tax provision was slid into a huge bipartisan infrastructure deal. It really never should have been included in this legislation in the first place. Why not? The infrastructure is being paid for in part by this tax. They're fundamentally linked.
Updated my comment to clarify a bit: this wasn't a tax on crypto, it was about tax reporting requirements for certain actors in the crypto space. (Because Bitcoin is psuedonymous it would have effectively be impossible to comply - functionally it was a ban on crypto mining in the US) Even with the original language, this provision generates no revenue. It's only about data collection.
> this provision generates no revenue. It's only about data collection.
I would want to see an independent analysis of this claim.
Increasing reporting requirements can generate revenue. There is a lot of unreported income. Given the culture around crypto, it isn't unreasonable to assume there is more of that going on there than baseline.
Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you read the article? This is just about exempting non-exchanges from “broker” status i.e. keeping track of users’ personal information, transaction history, and data. The representatives said they agree people not paying taxes on crypto is a problem, but classifying them as brokers is not the solution.
Why isn’t it part of the solution? It seems like keeping track of who buys mining equipment (at least at large scale) would be a pretty important component in making sure that they pay taxes? Just like it’s important that brokerages report your stock transactions to the IRS.
This isn't about buying mining equipment either.
It's whether bitcoin miners need to KYC the other boxes they communicate with. It'd be like requiring bittorrent clients to have a copy of drivers license on file for every other node they make connections to.
Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
So why not just send the payment to a Russian bank?
Because Russian banks need to be capable of transacting with American banks and directly receiving money that is Ransom Payment related is a bad business decision.
So you're saying sending money to a bitcoin address would help obscure the identity of the receiver?
Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I generally like CO2 tax/rebate/cap-and-trade systems: given how inefficient and polluting many low-cost techs are... not sure I can agree with that, particularly on the small scale down to individual people. Individuals have the least agency on decisions like this, since they have next to no purchasing power. Though we are talking about bitcoin, which does raise the technical/money base-level a fair bit.
Wouldn't it be easiest to tax some of the raw materials that go into fuel production, rather than tracking every fuel use? In that case, the CO2 tax will naturally fall equally to everyone, including individual people. The rebate is just there to cancel out the effect of an inherently regressive but technically convenient way of doing things.
That's generally the idea of a flat tax, yeah. Tax everything at point-of-collection/creation (e.g. "you cut down a tree" or "you burned a log") or point-of-import (likely offset for similar taxes collected by the origin country), and there's no need to track anything beyond that point. E.g. re-use or re-selling is (CO2-)tax-free because it doesn't change the net input/output of the whole system.
Which rarely happens in practice, and we're so far from accurately taxing all these processes that it isn't even a dream of a dream. It's mostly tackling big targets, since that's where a ton of the impact-per-dollar-and-per-outrage can be found.