Absolute power corrupts absolutely, never has this been more obvious to see than when nation states gain excessive power over others.
Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
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Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
#12> Around that time, Ver allegedly took possession of those bitcoins and in November 2017 sold tens of thousands of them on cryptocurrency exchanges for approximately $240 million in cash.
> Even though Ver was not then a U.S. citizen, he was still legally required to report to the IRS and pay tax on certain distributions such as dividends from MemoryDealers and Agilestar, which were U.S. corporations.
> In total, Ver is alleged to have caused a loss to the IRS of at least $48 million.
Lesson: You can’t run away from Uncle Sam even after signing away your citizenship.
Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
#13Not very surprising. He had already been arrested, back in 2002, for selling illegal stuff on eBay. He was somewhat of an attacker of Bitcoin, promoting his "bcash" fork.
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Given the monetary policy Satoshi chose and the headline he picked to include in the genesis block, I really don't think you can infer what he himself thought bitcoin was meant to become, even if he referred to it as cash originally.
Beyond that I don't see how it matters what something was designed to do or what early adopters personally used it for or thought it was meant to be used for. The only relevance for a technology is what it's actually adopted for over time and the total addressable market cap for a store of value being 100x + of that of a medium of exchange, it makes perfect sense to me that that's the feature the market converged to by far as reflected amongst other things by the relative prices between current btc and bch...
Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Bitcoin has worked for me all right for 10+ years. What is exactly wrong with it? At times fees have been a bit higher, but overall I would see the protocol as "good enough". For smaller transactions I have been using Lightning Network and it seems to work all right. The fact that Bitcoin hasn't hard forked for whatever reasons is a positive feature, that outweighs the negatives. You can consider for example Ethereum…
> Bitcoin has worked for me all right for 10+ years. What is exactly wrong with it?
How much of your Bitcoin usage is associated with crypto investments, vs a replacement for traditional bank transfers and expense payments?
I think it has worked well for a lot of people as an investment. Not so much as a replacement to normal money.
Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Bitcoin has worked for me all right for 10+ years. What is exactly wrong with it? At times fees have been a bit higher, but overall I would see the protocol as "good enough". For smaller transactions I have been using Lightning Network and it seems to work all right. The fact that Bitcoin hasn't hard forked for whatever reasons is a positive feature, that outweighs the negatives. You can consider for example Ethereum…
Vitalik is basically only a thought leader these days, he has taken many steps back (as you can read about on his blog). He doesn't "control" anything.
The guiding principle for the monetary policy of Ethereum has not changed: minimum viable issuance. Thanks to the economic efficiency of PoS + fee burn, it enabled what amounts to frontrunning every "halving" and having ~net zero issuance, it's simply good for holders.
If Bitcoin had a way to be secure without further issuance (huge can of worms, halvings are slowly ticking time bombs in the long-run, unless fees rise significantly), it'd be good for holders to fork and scrap it too. There'd be no need to pay billions for security through issuance.
Calling Ethereum centralized at this point is ridiculous. The fact that core devs from multiple client teams can manage to agree on and implement forks to keep developing the protocol (unlike Bitcoin) is a major accomplishment, not a failure.
Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
#16More and more countries are implementing an "exit tax" when wealthy people try to give up their citizenship. Also, the US authorities make it increasingly hard to do so. I wouldn't recommend anyone to become a US citizen. Once you are in, it is very costly to get out again.
US is likely the only jurisdiction that can actually enforce it. Other countries can't just call US government to send them back if they suspect they owe some tax.
Maybe, but you maybe want to travel. Even going back. Too bad if it would end up in 5 years jail time for some tax evasion or similar
Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
#17Interesting title by justice.gov. Tax evasion is illegal regardless of your background / investment portfolio, so why relevant? Sowing sentiment?
It’s a normal thing for the DOJ. They write press releases like articles, so you’ll see titles like “Popular businessman,” “Tech Company Founder charged with fraud,” “Social Media Influencer charged with…” etc.
Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
#18> Around that time, Ver allegedly took possession of those bitcoins and in November 2017 sold tens of thousands of them on cryptocurrency exchanges for approximately $240 million in cash. > Even though Ver was not then a U.S. citizen, he was still legally required to report to the IRS and pay tax on certain distributions such as dividends from MemoryDealers and Agilestar, which were U.S. corporations. > In total, Ver…
I'm not a tax expert so wondering, shouldn't the potential loss be computed off the non payment of exit tax at date of exit or 2014 levels? (which would have computed to much lower than 48mm)
Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
#19> Around that time, Ver allegedly took possession of those bitcoins and in November 2017 sold tens of thousands of them on cryptocurrency exchanges for approximately $240 million in cash. > Even though Ver was not then a U.S. citizen, he was still legally required to report to the IRS and pay tax on certain distributions such as dividends from MemoryDealers and Agilestar, which were U.S. corporations. > In total, Ver…
I'm not a tax expert so wondering, shouldn't the potential loss be computed off the non payment of exit tax at date of exit or 2014 levels? (which would have computed to much lower than 48mm)
The article says it's mainly 2 things: under-reporting on the exit tax, but also not reporting the dividend more recently (2017) when he transferred the coins to himself from the companies.
Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud
#20More and more countries are implementing an "exit tax" when wealthy people try to give up their citizenship. Also, the US authorities make it increasingly hard to do so. I wouldn't recommend anyone to become a US citizen. Once you are in, it is very costly to get out again.
Why not just maintain dual citizenship instead of needlessly renouncing?