Bitcoin Forum

Undermined bitcoin's usefulness as currencies will undermined its value too. Bitcoin is not even a digital silvers, oil and gold but currencies. http://www.coindesk.com/israel-may-gearing-tax-bitcoin-kind-property/

I will appreciate a link to your source so as to understand the underlying facts of the decision as well as the reasons as well. Then I will know whether to criticise such move or commend it. But I will still say kudos to them for not going the way of Columbia by banning it.

That's good news. At least they recognize it as something valuable. This will be the beginning of laws and regulations and will influence the recognition of bitcoin. In other words it will spread the word about it.
Maybe some wealthy jewish businessmen decide it's worth the time to learn more about this new digital "property."  ;) Of course a link to the source would be nice.

Good news indeed. And not news that should cause alarm. If it's worth having governments are going to find a way to tax it. Fortunately it's difficult to prove that one has it. This isn't true with organizations like Coinbase and Circle but no one has to use "a bank" to own, transact, and benefit from bitcoin.

I`m glad that the Israeli tax authorities don`t want to ban bitcoin. :)

We need more people in Israel to use bitcoin everyday.This is the strongest economy in the middle east.

Well, it's indeed a good news, and I hope that thing goes properly like what happened in U.S.A because they're also treating bitcoin as a property for the answers to the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) given by their citizen according to this link: https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/irs-virtual-currency-guidance

For now it's just a first draft, but it is indeed folowing USA in that matter.

But I still don't get it. How will they enforce this?
All transactions are anonymously, and without declaring it myself no one will know my revenues from bitcoin selling.
The only solution for the tax authotity is to refer it as a valid coin.
When poeple will change their money in official banks the ITA will be able to monitor it.

when people want to buy bitcoin you don't usually go to a dark alley wearing a trench coat and buy bitcoin with unmarked cash bills :)
instead they go on an exchange website, register, give all their information and documents, link their bank and then buy bitcoin. there is no need to monitor anything. they are reporting it themselves.
and besides this is going to be like investing in many other things, you don't hear people bitch about paying taxes when they invest in gold or trade stocks so why is it different with bitcoin?

When you sell your bitcoins you convert them to fiat, right?

And what do you want to do next? I guess it is like withdrawing the proceeds to a bank account. But can you open a bank account without providing full details about your identity? Hardly so. In this way, if you receive fiat transaction from some source, you may well expect to be asked what activity does this money come from, yet more so if the sum received is big enough and doesn't quite add up to your official income which you declared in your income tax return

Israel is making a right move when they threat bitcoin as a  property since bitcoin is both a  property and a currency. But given the fact that bitcoin is purchased using fiat currency then the proper way to tax it is to consider it as a property. To tax bitcoin as a currency is hard to to since transactions are done secretly but to tax it like a property is more feasible.

I would actually say that this is relatively good news seeing as it's becoming recongnised as an actual asset. Bitcoin has been rather big in Israel so it's no surprise that the government have made a move to try and tax it in whatever way they can.
If anyone is looking to make some money than perhaps it may be a good time to start stockpiling BTC (pre VAT) as long as the price doesn't change too drastically.

It doesn't matter what the classification is. It is only for tax purposes. After all, a lot of people consider bitcoin as digital gold. That doesnt take away Bitcoin's currency attributes.

Bitcoin will be legal for other countries if local government treated bitcoin as virtual money. Bitcoin can be legal, if bitcoin will have more securities. For me, bitcoin is not that safe at all, what about the hackers, we cannot say that bitcoin is that safe enough for us. So local government should aim for this

I really can't understand why you think that these news are good news. For whom except Israeli government? For people who have bitcoins why? Firstly Bitcoin is a peer to peer payment system, right? If I hold bitcoins and use it only as commodity, gold or anything else does not matter, then why to have bitcoins? Why the government of Israel does not recognize bitcoin as payment system? If Israel like as and other countries, UK, China, Russia, try to create their own digital currency what will be the bitcoin's value if is not considered as money?

Dear @Idrisu, thank you for the article, this news gives 2 different feelings, from one side it will be legal and it is good and on other side government will develop more tools how to track it and  citizens will have to pay more taxes and property taxes are not low at all :-\...Also, sorry for pointing but you made a mistake in the title of the topic, you missed letter R in Israel. ::)

That's only the first step. Next one is to make a national registry of all wallet holders in the country, and the last step is well known to all property owners: it's called tax.

Seriously, i dont really care how they will treat bitcoin. As long as they are into bitcoin and they are continuing adaption of it. Im okay with that. It doesnt matter to me how you treat it. This just for taxation purposes. Their problem is how they can impose tax to it?

Good news or bad news, it is stupid!  You can argue if you like that Bitcoin is a currency, or if it is money, or if it is an asset or a commodity.
I can tell you one thing for sure though, it isn't property!

It sounds like they just wanted to find some bracket to put it into, and they found one where they could heavily tax it, so it is now property in Israel.

At least they are taking it seriously I guess, but they could and should be embracing it, instead of stupidly naming it something it isn't!

there are some anonymous card that are offered from some "shady" website" but some of those i think are legit, just a little expensive

by using this you might in theory evade as they don't revale anything about your identity, but people tend to forget that from the moment you do a purchase online you are traceable...

It seems that you misunderstand what is meant here

Most likely, by property they don't mean, for example, real estate or any tangible assets, but rather a property right, or right to property (ownership) in the sense that everyone has exclusive rights to possess, use and dispose of what belongs to him as well as no one can take his belongings from him without his prior consent. In this manner, money can also be an object of the right to property since obviously it is always in someone's ownership and possession

 Treat bitcoin as a property will undermined it value. You should understand that money is a medium of exchange for goods and services, if we said bitcoin is a currency then it should be used as a medium of exchange and Israel tax authority has to see it as so. Israel is try to treat bitcoin as property then it means bitcoin is goods and not medium of exchange.

Bitcoin groups different kind of people and among them are persons that don't want to pay taxes to the governments of the world because they consider it a theft and they don't consider evading taxes as a crime, so that is the reason.

If Bitcoin is treated as a currency, this doesn't magically prevent it from being someone's property

These qualities are not mutually exclusive, though this may make a difference for the purposes of taxation, of course. And this is the heart of the matter. It is not clear whether Israeli tax agency considering Bitcoin as property will not serve it better service than if it considered it as a currency. Personally, we don't know what tax rates would be applicable in either of these cases, so it cannot be said with certainty what would be better for Bitcoin in general and its holders specifically

I think Bitcoin should be classified as a currency, that is what it was designed to be but even the Bitcoin lovers see it has an asset. Governments don't want to commit themselves and are very careful with every decision they take, classifying BTC as money can have a significant effect on a country if care is not taken.

The more reasonable for me is to classified bitcoin as currency, but some how because bitcoin still in grey area, so some people consider it as property, some of them consider it as currency, but I think we are at disadvantage if government decide bitcoin as property as I know I need to pay tax if it is a property

Nowadays, there are not many avenues to use Bitcoin as a currency. Only a few online shops and a handful of restaurants / cafeterias accept payments in Bitcoin. Also, Bitcoin has given almost 300% returns in the past year. This makes it more like an investment rather than a currency.

That's an good effort and an better option put forth by the Israeli government considering bitcoin as the property. So by the days to come the taxation issues in relation with bitcoin transactions gets solved to some extent which also energies people to use more digital currency.

If this Israel country wants to treat Bitcoin as a property, It can be a sign of good news or false alarm for the bitcoin enthusiast. Good news in a way that there is country like Israel will adopt the system of bitcoin that they will give an ordinance for bitcoiner to their citizens over there. False alarm because it might be in the long run we bitcoin enthusiast will going to have tax deduction in every transaction and that is not good, am I right.

Recognition from a government is constructive steps and in favor of bitcoin. At least Govt is willing accept it as legitimate rather trying to ban the concept altogether. If Govt recognize something as property then obvious purpose is to milk the cow (bitcoin). Anything non-taxable does not go well with establishment any way. With tax one thing become clear that legality of bitcoin gets official in that country. Otherwise it remains in "If it is NOT illegal till now then it is legal" scenario. Instead of this 'It is legal and you have to pay tax for it' is better.

Had they recognized Bitcoin as a currency, then it could have been much better. But I will not complain. At least BTC is legitimate now in Israel, and the users will not face any harassment from the authorities. 

That is a clear explanation and I salute you for doing so. Israel want to tax bitcoin users for holding bitcoins. The only thing that is bugging me is how they will determine the actual number of bitcoins a citizen has or how can they determine that this wallet is owned by an Israeli. Maybe they have a system to monitor everything but are they that very advanced in technology to do this things.

I dont get people saying its a good thing, All matter of the politics in israel and them wanting to cut some loose ends in my opinion

To me every news that says it accepts bitcoin is a good news.
It gives a kind of certainty that posession of bitcoin is seen to be legal in that country and will not be prohibited.
If they put taxes on selling bitcoins, that's something most of the bitcoin users can live with.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

They may make it legal but being not illegal might in fact be a better option overall. How come? If Bitcoin is not regulated and remains in the gray zone, the authorities have basically nothing to bring against Bitcoin as such and Bitcoin users specifically since it doesn't exist for them. Taxing Bitcoin or at least trying to tax it will put at risk those users (and these likely constitute a majority of Bitcoin users) who are not going to pay any taxes at all, no matter what. Therefore, while theoretically these steps could be constructive and purportedly in favor of Bitcoin, in practice they might not be as good as in theory


My property is my property! What's mine is mine!!!

In my country I dont think I can use it anywhere yet. European Union country by the way. 2 atm's in my town, which is nice progress I gotta say. Small bitcoin community but it keep on growing. I dont ever see bitcoin as a everyday currency, more of a webshop currency, at its best. I see it mostly as investment, and I treat it that way.

Great news. Bitcoin is gaining more and more recognition. The more official authorities see Bitcoin as an asset or property the more people will get to know about it and the more people will invest in it.