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Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

bitspend.com

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Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#51

Post by regularfry »

ahi wrote: post #35
regularfry wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say I'd noticed. Admittedly it's not trivial, in that I don't know of anywhere you can just show up with a credit card and buy a bitcoin, but it's hardly rocket surgery to fund a MtGox account.

It's taken me the better part of a week to fund a MtGox account. 10 minutes to send bitcoin around the world. 5 days to complete a damn USD money transfer.

Urgh. In which case, you have my sympathies. It certainly wasn't that much of a hassle for me. Stick with it, I could certainly believe that MtGox is under a certain amount of strain right now.

That being said, they aren't the only option: other exchanges are cropping up, and bitcoin-otc is also available.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#52

Post by IgorPartola »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #36
veb wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRS taxes... money, right? Does it tax virtual currency? Sorry, I'm not sure. My line of thought was perhaps there's something written where it states that only the official currency is taxed. I agree with you though, the whole Bitcoin thing is getting very interesting. P.S. would the down-voters explain? It's not like I know everything about tax law, I was simply asking a question. :)

No matter how you get paid, the IRS wants the same share of fair market value: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html . I can't think of a reason they'd treat bitcoin differently than foreign money.

Because BTC is wothless. Or rather that is what you could try to claim. If I mine a bunch of BTC and then pay you with it, I have not assigned any value to it. And if you never convert it to USD, you do not assign value to it either. When you fill out your tax forms, what would you put for its value? Moreover the IRS has no standard way to measure it. They cannot use Mt Gox any more than they can use Craig's list. The BTC is way too small and fluctuates too much to be accurately measured unless USD is involved somewhere.

I am not a lawyer or a CPA and the above is just a theory, not advice.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#53

Post by lallysingh »

adrianwaj wrote: post #41

ideas: - make bitspend a place for users to buy bitcoins - make bitspend a place for users to cash out bitcoins - build a reputation and move into ebay and amazon payments (can you become some type of power buyer or affiliate) - collect testimonials - provide a bookmarklet or plugin so users can browse the shopping sites transparently but pay on bitspend - a person could have an item they want to buy for say $30, ins…

You've gotta be real careful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#Crime_and_fraud

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#54

Post by maxerickson »

IgorPartola wrote: post #52
prodigal_erik wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter how you get paid, the IRS wants the same share of fair market value: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html . I can't think of a reason they'd treat bitcoin differently than foreign money.

Because BTC is wothless. Or rather that is what you could try to claim. If I mine a bunch of BTC and then pay you with it, I have not assigned any value to it. And if you never convert it to USD, you do not assign value to it either. When you fill out your tax forms, what would you put for its value? Moreover the IRS has no standard way to measure it. They cannot use Mt Gox any more than they can use Craig's list. Th…

If I give you 1 bitcoin and you give me a donut, we've agreed that 1 bitcoin is worth a donut.

(it is similar to the situation with barter, in the U.S. it is taxable and the IRS will expect you to put a dollar value on the income and be able to defend the valuations you use)

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#55

Post by wisty »

IgorPartola wrote: post #52
prodigal_erik wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter how you get paid, the IRS wants the same share of fair market value: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html . I can't think of a reason they'd treat bitcoin differently than foreign money.

Because BTC is wothless. Or rather that is what you could try to claim. If I mine a bunch of BTC and then pay you with it, I have not assigned any value to it. And if you never convert it to USD, you do not assign value to it either. When you fill out your tax forms, what would you put for its value? Moreover the IRS has no standard way to measure it. They cannot use Mt Gox any more than they can use Craig's list. Th…

If you aren't sure, you can ask the IRS.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#56

Post by Retric »

veb wrote: post #34
mmaunder wrote: post #31

Damn this is getting interesting. I'm a HUGE fan of bitcoin but I'm too chickenshit to accept payment for our business. (chickenshit being a summary for issues relating to IRS, fraud, currency stability, deflationary risk, etc) When the IRS throws their hat into the ring it's going to get serious, both in terms of positive PR for bitcoin and risk. That will happen once there's a full service economy in the currency i…

The IRS taxes... money, right? Does it tax virtual currency? Sorry, I'm not sure. My line of thought was perhaps there's something written where it states that only the official currency is taxed. I agree with you though, the whole Bitcoin thing is getting very interesting. P.S. would the down-voters explain? It's not like I know everything about tax law, I was simply asking a question. :)

You pay taxes on value earned in USD. You could have been paid in ice or bitcoin but it's your job to pay the government in USD.

PS: The IRS has made an exception for currency's earned in games unless real world goods exchange hands.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#57

Post by testcock1 »

simplestuff wrote: post #13
ineedtosleep wrote: post #3

Considering how much people are charging in BTC for goods and services currently and the difficulty of earning BTC, I'd rather spend real currency. Note that I didn't check the Newegg BTC prices. I'm only applying what I've seen so far and expecting nothing different from bitspend/Newegg.

This is perfect for me as someone who does not live in the US. I live in Peru, don't have access to real electronics, cannot order from newegg without a US credit card / US address. If this site really does mail forwarding, then it would be awesome for me. I just wish they also did clothes, books, maybe amazon.com or something.

You can use BTCBuy to buy amazon gift cards with bitcoin, just redeem the code on your amazon.com account, and you can buy it whatever you like.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#58

Post by IgorPartola »

maxerickson wrote: post #54
IgorPartola wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because BTC is wothless. Or rather that is what you could try to claim. If I mine a bunch of BTC and then pay you with it, I have not assigned any value to it. And if you never convert it to USD, you do not assign value to it either. When you fill out your tax forms, what would you put for its value? Moreover the IRS has no standard way to measure it. They cannot use Mt Gox any more than they can use Craig's list. Th…

If I give you 1 bitcoin and you give me a donut, we've agreed that 1 bitcoin is worth a donut. (it is similar to the situation with barter, in the U.S. it is taxable and the IRS will expect you to put a dollar value on the income and be able to defend the valuations you use)

Huh, I did not know that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter#Tax_implications.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#59

Post by travisp »

IgorPartola wrote: post #58
maxerickson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I give you 1 bitcoin and you give me a donut, we've agreed that 1 bitcoin is worth a donut. (it is similar to the situation with barter, in the U.S. it is taxable and the IRS will expect you to put a dollar value on the income and be able to defend the valuations you use)

Huh, I did not know that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter#Tax_implications .

It could be worse than a regular barter transaction, because the IRS could be looking for capital gains on your bitcoins as well.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#60

Post by Astrohacker »

phamilton wrote: post #28

Here's my theory (from right field) on where the free lunch is coming from: Bitspend is a hosting company that has invested a lot of extra rack space into mining equipment. They see the giant bubble brewing and have realized that bitcoin needs some legs to stand on. If bitcoin survives, Bitspend's mining operation makes a huge profit. If it crashes, they lose a lot. So giving people an easy way to use bitcoin as an a…

It's not a free lunch. They can sell the bitcoins on the market if they need USD.
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