Crypto investors face tax crackdown as 70% non-compliant

For making profit or gains.

The state doesn't give you protection on you buying shares either.

And if someone would steal your bitcoin, shares or whatever, the state would allow you to use the legal system to get it back. Its your issue if you use something which is inherant intransparent, partially anonmous and globally unregulated.

The tax is there to pay streets, kindergarden, schools, etc. btw.

It's always been like this unless the gain and loss is in the same tax year (and they are of a certain type that can offset each other)

It makes sense when you think about it. If you made a huge capital gain and then "lost" it in Vegas how is that different than "losing" it via other means?

Also, if this wasn't the case, it'd be a massive, gaping loophole. "Oh, I settled this stock in another currency, so I don't owe taxes yet/ever".

There are some situations where it maybe there should be an exception. When employee stock options are exercised, that's usually considered a taxable event, even if the shares aren't liquid (like in startups). This means you'd have to pay tax on something that you have to hold and could be worthless or forcing people into these events because the options may expire.

But for gods sake, whenever you "make" decent or life changing amounts of money, talk to a lawyer and accountant. There's so much misinformation about taxes out there. I used to work for a forex company and people, especially expats, would constantly move small amounts of money because they thought that they'd have to pay taxes on importing money into the country. They didn't realize that the forms they'd have to fill are only for reporting to deal with laundering. They could have just moved their money in one simple swoop.

You buy a bitcoin for 20,000. You sell it for 50,000. At this point you probably owe capital gains on 30,000. You then take the 30,000, use it to buy an NFT, and later sell the NFT for 0.01 (because NFT). At this point you have had gain of 30k and loss of 30k. Now, it's going to depend a lot on exactly when all this happened and in which jurisdiction, but in many countries you probably owe tax on the 30k.

Why is that a stupid rule?

If I sell Nvidia stock to buy AMD stock, I need to pay tax on my Nvidia stock gains.