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Treasury Dept. Seeks to Track Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts over $600

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Re: Treasury Dept. Seeks to Track Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts over $600

#11

Post by Tycho »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #10
anovikov wrote: post #9

Result will be like we see in Russia: deals between US businesses will become deals between their offshores, and just enough money to pay salaries, will be moved into the country.

Unlikely. Most American small businesses and individuals can't set up offshore structures willy nilly (it's too expensive and complex), and FACTA makes it a lot harder for them to even if they want to. Lots of financial institutions hate working with Americans and will avoid it if possible in some places because of FACTA. Keeping money offshore doesn't make sense for the little guy. You're required to report it with…

Crypto is offshore finance for the little guy.

Re: Treasury Dept. Seeks to Track Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts over $600

#12

Post by LurkingPenguin »

Tycho wrote: post #11
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely. Most American small businesses and individuals can't set up offshore structures willy nilly (it's too expensive and complex), and FACTA makes it a lot harder for them to even if they want to. Lots of financial institutions hate working with Americans and will avoid it if possible in some places because of FACTA. Keeping money offshore doesn't make sense for the little guy. You're required to report it with…

Crypto is offshore finance for the little guy.

No it isn't. Once you want to convert to fiat (so you can spend it), you're back in the realm of the regulated financial world. If you're running a small business, chances are you can't a) use your crypto without converting to fiat or b) can't use your crypto without identifying yourself to a regulated financial institution.

Since BTC, ETH, etc. are public ledgers, you're basically already giving every government agency in the world the ability to track your balances and transactions without any additional regulation or infrastructure required. Of course, if you're super careful, they might not know it's you yet, but if they really want to, they can find out and make sure you don't sleep very well at night while they wait.

Re: Treasury Dept. Seeks to Track Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts over $600

#13

Post by pentae »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #12
Tycho wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto is offshore finance for the little guy.

No it isn't. Once you want to convert to fiat (so you can spend it), you're back in the realm of the regulated financial world. If you're running a small business, chances are you can't a) use your crypto without converting to fiat or b) can't use your crypto without identifying yourself to a regulated financial institution. Since BTC, ETH, etc. are public ledgers, you're basically already giving every government age…

.. Or you could pay in crypto. Or you could convert your crypto to cash in a Wendys parking lot.

Re: Treasury Dept. Seeks to Track Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts over $600

#14

Post by matt123456789 »

quantified wrote: post #3

The proposal seems wrong, but the article is a bit off too. > As Mises noted, capitalism suffocates without loopholes. The definition of “loophole” here, though, is actual tax avoidance. Wrong tack to take. I’ve worked in small and marginal businesses, we paid the taxes. No sympathy here. The article refers twice to the idea that the reporting will be on movements of $600 or more- is that right? A plain reading of th…

I don’t know what the author was hoping to accomplish by all but advocating for tax avoidance, but wow, what a poor argument against this proposal. The real issues are that this 1. would cause the creation of another billions-of-dollars citizen surveillance machine, and 2. creates a crushing regulatory burden on small businesses.

Re: Treasury Dept. Seeks to Track Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts over $600

#15

Post by LurkingPenguin »

pentae wrote: post #13
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. Once you want to convert to fiat (so you can spend it), you're back in the realm of the regulated financial world. If you're running a small business, chances are you can't a) use your crypto without converting to fiat or b) can't use your crypto without identifying yourself to a regulated financial institution. Since BTC, ETH, etc. are public ledgers, you're basically already giving every government age…

.. Or you could pay in crypto. Or you could convert your crypto to cash in a Wendys parking lot.

This might sound good if you're living in the jungles of Belize. But let's be realistic. The average individual and small business owner cannot meet their day-to-day financial obligations by dealing only with unregulated counterparties that transact in crypto. And the vast majority of people do not wish to live a life where they're exchanging USBs for cash using crypto "plugs" they meet in fast food parking lots.

Furthermore, in the latter scenario, that cash is eventually going to get deposited back into a regulated institution (to pay credit card bills, etc.). If anything, a person depositing thousands of dollars in cash on a regular basis is going to draw more scrutiny, especially if they're not running a cash business.

Which leads to the obvious solution: you're going to buy that Wendy's where you're exchanging your USBs for cash. Congratulations. You're now officially a money launderer!

Re: Treasury Dept. Seeks to Track Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts over $600

#17

Post by votepaunchy »

just_steve_h wrote: post #8

We would (almost) all of us be better off if we had a financial transaction tax, and the IRS focused on THAT.

How would the tax be enforced on cash, or is the elimination of paper money a second-order effect?

Re: Treasury Dept. Seeks to Track Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts over $600

#19

Post by rmesters »

I wonder how this could work in practice. A Gov entity will have to connect to some bank APIs to streamline the monitoring? Most banks don't have APIs to connect to. It would pretty wild if the Gov had to ask people to share their bank passwords and then had to screen-scrape the data from their accounts to "establish a connection".

Re: Treasury Dept. Seeks to Track Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts over $600

#20

Post by goatsecxkirk »

just_steve_h wrote: post #8

We would (almost) all of us be better off if we had a financial transaction tax, and the IRS focused on THAT.

That's ridiculous. Why should I be taxed on every transaction? I get taxed when I make money and then everytime I purchase something/move money?
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