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Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

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Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#51

Post by earnesti »

yardstick wrote: post #14
repomies69 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I think it has worked well for a lot of people as an investment. Not so much as a replacement to normal money.

Replacing normal money altogether would anyway be an huge goal. Personally I believe, long-term Bitcoin is getting there. I've been using it for payments, now and then, for about 10 years. Mostly as an experiment, but sometimes it also is more convenient to pay with BTC. In general there has been slow, but increasing acceptance of BTC as a payment method. For some things it makes more sense than others. The biggest issue was the early misconception of it being good for microtransactions. I would say that it is more for macropayments.

Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#52

Post by trimethylpurine »

scotty79 wrote: post #48
trimethylpurine wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're born in the Netherlands and retire to South Korea, will the Netherlands continue to pay you a base income and provide healthcare?

Does US do that?

Yes.

https://www.usa.gov/social-security-abroad

Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#53

Post by hggh »

tromp wrote: post #25
yardstick wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Bitcoin was designed as an investment vehicle by its choice of capped supply. Use as a currency would have vastly benefitted from a fixed block subsidy, which also would have avoided much of its current wealth concentration [1]. [1] https://john-tromp.medium.com/a-case-for-using-soft-total-su...

> Bitcoin was designed as an investment vehicle

Please read the whitepaper [0], at least its title

[0] https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf

Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#54

Post by bboygravity »

tromp wrote: post #21
Hermel wrote: post #6

More 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.

As a Dutch citizen, I can leave the Netherlands to live elsewhere and no longer have to file Dutch taxes. US citizens have an IRS filing requirement even when living abroad. What other countries behave like the US in this regard?

This is not accurate. If you move out of the Netherlands as a Dutch citizen you definitely still have to file your IRS for at least a couple of years (until "computer says no"). Even with no assets or income from Netherlands.

Source: I did it.

And of course if you have assets in The Netherlands of any kind you'll have to keep filing IRS as long as you have anything going on there.

Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#55

Post by andrewstuart »

romeros wrote: post #50
andrewstuart wrote: post #23

Look, if you owe lots of tax its because you made lots of money. Pay the tax, be happy. I just don't get why some people are so obsessed with not paying tax. You don't have to pay tax when you didn't earn money so stop being so stingy. I know lots of people who go to extraordinary lengths to reduce the amount of tax they will pay even if it means they end up with less money in their pocket . It's crazy. Needing to pa…

It's challenging when dealing with millions of dollars. $5 million is a substantial amount, and a 37% capital gains tax would reduce it to approximately $3 million. Essentially, you would lose $2 million to taxes. $5m is life changing. Having said that it is stupid to commit tax fraud and live a life of perpetual fear.

>> you would lose $2 million to taxes

This is where people lose perspective. You're not "losing" anything. If $2million is owing on $5million then the $2million was never yours to "lose to tax". The $2million was always owned by the government (assuming it is calculated correctly).

The mindset that tax is losing money or being taken from you is I think at the heart of why some people go tax crazy.

It's easier to deal with if you don't ever see it as your money, cause its not your money.

You made $3million and part of the cost of making $3million is $2million tax.

Focus on the $3million. The $2million in a real way does not exist to you.

Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#56

Post by hggh »

repomies69 wrote: post #9
YugyDugan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

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…

> I have been using Lightning Network and it seems to work all right

That won't last. As stated in the Lightning Network whitepaper [0], it will need much bigger blocks (it mentions up to 133MB) to scale.

[0] https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf

Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#57

Post by throwaway22032 »

andrewstuart wrote: post #23

Look, if you owe lots of tax its because you made lots of money. Pay the tax, be happy. I just don't get why some people are so obsessed with not paying tax. You don't have to pay tax when you didn't earn money so stop being so stingy. I know lots of people who go to extraordinary lengths to reduce the amount of tax they will pay even if it means they end up with less money in their pocket . It's crazy. Needing to pa…

I don't owe you anything.

Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#58

Post by scotty79 »

tromp wrote: post #25
yardstick wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Bitcoin was designed as an investment vehicle by its choice of capped supply. Use as a currency would have vastly benefitted from a fixed block subsidy, which also would have avoided much of its current wealth concentration [1]. [1] https://john-tromp.medium.com/a-case-for-using-soft-total-su...

Fixed block subsidy would have a risk of supply outpacing the demand. Then the price would drop structurally which could cause "run on bank" and wholesale abandonment.

Decreasing amount of bitcoin supply means that eventually the supply would fall below demand, which ensures rising price.

Every 4 years when supply and the demand reach equilibrium, the supply is halved which triggers new price rise and renewed interest. The entire crypto ecosystem follows.

Bitcoin halvings are THE reason crypto is a thing. Not just a curiosity for some techies.

We have maybe two cycles left ahead of us. Then crypto will become just digital gold randomly fluctuating with interest from the asset holders.

Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#59

Post by scotty79 »

hggh wrote: post #53
tromp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin was designed as an investment vehicle by its choice of capped supply. Use as a currency would have vastly benefitted from a fixed block subsidy, which also would have avoided much of its current wealth concentration [1]. [1] https://john-tromp.medium.com/a-case-for-using-soft-total-su...

> Bitcoin was designed as an investment vehicle Please read the whitepaper [0], at least its title [0] https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf

I guess it was lucky that it was designed quite badly for the stated purpose and it was actually designed as investment vessel.

Re: Early Bitcoin Investor Roger Ver Charged with Tax Fraud

#60

Post by scotty79 »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #52
scotty79 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does US do that?

Yes. https://www.usa.gov/social-security-abroad

How about healthcare? I was under the impression that it isn't provided even if you live in US.

Pensions for elderly works within borders of EU.

You can for example move from Netherlands to Poland for retirement and get Dutch pension while living very comfortably in Poland.

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