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Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

asia.nikkei.com

1–10 of 37 posts

Re: Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

#3
IMHO this is a watershed event. It recognizes that Bitcoin has perceived value enough that the regulator is compelled to protect consumers. Never mind how regulation can be gamed internationally, the recognition is so significant I'm going to investigate speculating on Bitcoin's future having kept out so far.

Re: Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

#4
post #3

IMHO this is a watershed event. It recognizes that Bitcoin has perceived value enough that the regulator is compelled to protect consumers. Never mind how regulation can be gamed internationally, the recognition is so significant I'm going to investigate speculating on Bitcoin's future having kept out so far.

In the US, they regulate penny stocks, and those things are only worth a few pennies. The issue isn't the value of the commodity--it's the potential for avoidable loss due to market manipulation.

Re: Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

#6
post #2

> Japan's consumption tax, which is set to rise to 8% on April 1 So they're actually going through with this, when the economy has been depressed for over a decade...?

Only in America is a tax increase equated (without any further investigation) to depressing the economy, and a tax break (once again without investigation) equated with letting the peacock that is the economy fly free.

Re: Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

#7
Just in time for Japan to have no exchanges to regulate. (Other, I guess, than LocalBitcoin. Which may or may not count, and would be hard to deal with anyway.) Or does someone know of one that doens't show up on any of the charts? Gox is the only JPY exchange I've seen.

Question is: does this help or hurt MtGox's chance of resurrection? Probably makes it less likely to happen, but somewhat more likely that people will come back if it does.

Re: Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

#8
post #6
post #2

> Japan's consumption tax, which is set to rise to 8% on April 1 So they're actually going through with this, when the economy has been depressed for over a decade...?

Only in America is a tax increase equated (without any further investigation) to depressing the economy, and a tax break (once again without investigation) equated with letting the peacock that is the economy fly free.

Indeed. But I hope you're not implying I am doing that. ):

Love, a liberal Canadian bent on destroying freedom, liberty, capitalism, and all things good.

Re: Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

#9
post #5

Is anyone else skeptical of the government's ability to effectively tax bitcoin? The scale of doing so both technologically and physically seems far too complicated for such a minute market.

This is even true of cash — people get paid under the table all the time. However, if you get caught doing that too much…

Re: Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

#10
post #5

Is anyone else skeptical of the government's ability to effectively tax bitcoin? The scale of doing so both technologically and physically seems far too complicated for such a minute market.

It doesn't need to be any more sophisticated than the taxing of every other asset that gets traded. When you realize a gain or loss from buying or selling gold bars, train engines or copy machines you're expected to report that.

If you make a lot of money buying and selling Bitcoin, you're probably going through exchanges that are licensed and can be subpoenaed for records if your own are in question. If you are accepting Bitcoin as payment on a website, you're probably using something like Coinbase to facilitate it, which means there are 3rd party records of your income.

If you're trading drugs on Silk Road #3, maybe that won't be taxed, but neither are most cash transactions on Craigslist; the government doesn't attempt to put an auditor in every home to catch every transaction that's supposed to be reported.

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