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Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

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211–220 of 247 posts

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#211
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> eliminating the energy spent on maintaining the fiat system which is easily more than 1.5% of global emissions Absolutely. It's impossible to accurately account for, but a significant part of why the US Military Industrial Complex is so over-provisioned is to maintain dollar hegemony. 800 international US military bases, the Iraq war, invasion of Libya, force projection exercises by the navy, etc. Being the world p…

[quote]if the dollar wasn't the world reserve currency there would be less need and funds for maintaining such a bloated amount of power[/quote] Citation needed. You really think that other countries, and businesses and individuals in these countries store their savings and denominate their contracts in US dollars at gunpoint? Ridiculous.

You are being superlative, but I absolutely believe that the reason we have a bigger military than the next ~10 countries combined is that we want to be the dominant superpower. And part of the desire for that dominance is maintaining the USD as the world reserve currency.

Whenever a country tries to move commodity trades away from the dollar (iraq oil, iran oil, libya gold, venezuela oil) coincidentally pretexts for military operations against them start being manufactured.

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#212
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use your brain to think through the initial 3-4 domino effects of a carbon tax, you'll quickly realize that the end result is the little guy paying the actual tax via inflation while the big guy actually enjoys larger profit totals (maintaining profit margin % on newly inflated prices = more profit). The tricky part is actually using your brain to think it through.

Carbon tax is about transitioning away from carbon. If you're afraid about the little guy, couple it with a tax cut on lower incomes.

I believe the Canadian carbon tax is revenue neutral, and the amount collected is returned via income tax credits.

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#213
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the reporting requirement was implemented, yes it would provide the IRS with more data that could be used to catch tax evaders. However, they should be able to get nearly all of the information they need from the USD-BTC edges (exchanges).

Effectively, I think what would have happened if this was enacted would be that all legitimate mining operations would move out of US, and the IRS still wouldn't get much data, just less tax revenue because those profits are no longer occurring on US soil by US entities.

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#214

Finally 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…

Does this include or exclude DEXes? It sounds like C) could mean that DEXes are not included (which would be good), but I'm not entirely clear on the legal definitions of some of these things.

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miners typically get their funds as income, not necessarily cap gains.

It's a gain based on your invested capital, isn't it? It's textbook capital gains. PoS, PoW, whatever.

A baker buys an oven which they use to bake bread. They sell the bread for dollars. Is that capital gains?

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETH PoS mainnet transition is underway and will be completed early 2022. With this holders of ETH will be able to earn fees from transactions, just by running an application on their standard normal computer. The only encouragement you need to move off of POW is profit motive.

Haven't they been saying POS will be "ready soon" for years? Seems like maybe vaporware used for hype? "The Ethereum proof of stake date has been set for December 1, 2020. While the proof of stake Ethereum date was originally set for January 2020, this deadline was missed." https://www.exodus.com/blog/ethereum-proof-of-stake-date/

Is that what a cursory Google search brings up? It actually did launch in December 2020, so that's awkward.

Some HN users are staking Eth and earning on Eth 2.0 contract, which functions on the Beacon Chain.

Both chains have not been merged yet, far from vaporware so I guess last decade called and wants its arguments back.

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#217
post #169
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No I'm saying a Russian bank probably doesn't look past the deposit. But if the deposit comes from America then an American bank will ask for it back when the US govt tells it to and then the bank will do so because it's good business. So I would imagine most ransomware gangs just keep the money in bitcoin and only pull out what they need to when they need to.

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miners typically get their funds as income, not necessarily cap gains.

It's a gain based on your invested capital, isn't it? It's textbook capital gains. PoS, PoW, whatever.

Mining is reportable as ordinary income in the US.

Cryptocurrency earners have to report ordinary income taxes as well as capital gain/loss taxes.

Its not that hard, less than ideal, its also easy to immediately convert to USDC or fiat automatically, or find other deductions to reduce or eliminate the tax burden.

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#219
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ransomware used PayPal accounts or bank numbers those payments would quickly start being censored to cut off their payment rails. The value of crypto is all rooted in censorship resistance, not anonymity.

Wouldn't it have to be an agency in their own jurisdiction that would prevent the hacker from accessing banking services? They would make an effort to shut down the hackers bank account but not prosecute them?

The pressure point in the traditional financial system is not the Russian authorities cutting off the Russian hacker from a Russian bank, it's SWIFT cutting off the Russian bank from the global financial system.

Re: Senators move to exempt Bitcoin, crypto miners from proposed U.S. tax rules

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venmo's core value right now is that it's ubiquitous. Everyone has a Venmo account and everyone trusts it. I paid an electrician through it yesterday -- no new Fed tech is going to replace it overnight, just like Zelle didn't kill it either.

> Venmo's core value right now is that it's ubiquitous Is it? I just did a straw poll of people in my office, located in Canada. People from 28-50 no one has venmo. 3 of 15 knew about it. Now my sample may not match the rest of the world as these are some pretty highly educated and high networth individuals so venmo isn't something that would really benefit us, but it does really weaken the ubiquitous claim Where is…

The USA.
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