Bitcoin Forum

If you think investing in bitcoin or a similar “crypto-currency” may be a good method for hiding income from the tax man, you’d better think again.
http://nypost.com/2017/04/08/no-you-cant-avoid-taxes-by-investing-in-bitcoin/

I am smelling something good here with the news. If the government declared about how peoples can't avoid the taxes by investing in bitcoin, it means directly or indirectly government said that they recognize the existence of bitcoin and how it can be profitable to invest.

I believe that applies only when you buy and sell bitcoin at an exchange, where the exchange has all your personal details and accounts.

If you just hold your bitcoin outside the exchanges, no government will be able to tax you because they won't know how much you have.

well this is not new! i am not from US but this thing with taxes and bitcoin has been around from 2014 when IRS officially released their statement towards bitcoin and gave the guideline so that taxpayers can fill the appropriate forms to pay their taxes while investing in bitcoin.


i think that can still be considered as tax evasion. you can ask @BurtW about it!

Have you tried localbitcoins.com? It's the best P2P market ever that I know of.

The US is a country in very very bad shape.
Sometimes we can see even some 3rd world Asian countries are way better off than the US.

The only people that can avoid taxes are the miners. Governments have no way of finding out how many coins you mined. As long as you don't exchange them into fiat or buy high dollar items like a new Lamborghini they will never know. There are still a few exchanges that don't ask for AML/KYC info. It is possible to exchange for fiat but you need to be careful about it. One way is BTCe to PerfectMoney account with SMS Authentication to a burn phone, PerfectMoney to online gold dealer, mail gold to a mail drop remailer service anywhere in the world. Sell gold at a local brick-n-mortar dealer in under $2k individual sales. However, the amount of extra expense to do this in fees and time involved is nearly as much as just paying your taxes. You might be better off just going that route unless you have another reason to not let anyone (including the government) know how much money you have.

If the government want taxed us then it's mean the government need to admit the bitcoin existence and make rules about it, in my country there is still no fixed rules about it yet, but in the future government will try to taxed us, and we can't evade taxed with bitcoin anymore

Well the title is just wrong!

Here in Germany, if you buy and hold for 1 year, then you can sell without paying tax. Thems the rules, so you can 100% avoid paying taxes by investing in Bitcoin!

I bought mine in 2014, so can happily sell whenever I want and not worry about taxes :)

actually you can with mining , they won't be able to find your income if you keep it in bitcoin, also IRS isn't in all country, don't pretend that what happen in USA happen everywhere

but it's true that you need to pay taxes if you ump your bitcoin fiat, it's better to leave them in bitcoin and try to use it as a currency

That's true and truly tax can be avoided through bitcoin usage. Though its been considered as a taxable asset on few countries those are not much effective. As quoted localbitcoins are good for exchanging need as well it comes under licenses category of exchanges.

I'm totally not aware what are the laws in your country or how much tax they charge but for now in my country people are barely aware of bitcoin , so i don't see that any tax will be charged from me in the coming years.

You pay tax either directly or indirectly to government, I don't believe the talk of evading tax since almost everything you use is taxed by them. The exchange collect trading fee from you and pay the government their own cut.

Have you heard of value added tax well the companies area placing those kind of taxes and charged it to the products you are buying. In this regard even bitcoin is not free from such taxes. The moment you convert your bitcoin into your local currency the tax was already deducted by the company from your withdrawals and it will be remitted to the government. Thus the government loves bitcoin since it is easy to tax it unlike fiat currency.

You are supposed to pay your taxes on the money that you have earned using government's properties and protection, besides only once using a mixer no one will be able to link you to any bitcoins unless you try to exchange them in regulated services.

bitcoin doesn't give you any magical power. if you can or can not avoid taxes while investing in any other thing or even evade taxes on your business the the same thing is true about bitcoin too.
stop wanting something out of the ordinary from bitcoin. bitcoin is money too but with all its transactions public :)

It does really depend on the situation on when bitcoin can be taxed not directly but on the services on which being used.Yes they can be taxed but most of your money transacted without any party involved then its completely tax free inspite of the tx fee. Thats all.

Bitcoin is the decentralized digital money. It's really difficult to find out how much you have money in bitcoin, you may hold it or do another job. Normally their might be created a chance for hiding income from the tax man. Unlike traditional currencies and some policy, government failed to control and that's enough, we'll be able to keep away from taxes by investing in bitcoin or what we do in the marketplace.

They recognize bitcoin that means they can make good money with the people using. Actually, it's hard to hide from the government since they all ahve the resources and they are powerful enough, tax due should be paid and they are after of it since it is the lifeblood of the country.

I do not agree with you, when you take a bitcoin a high price for melting in your pocket, then there will be questions on the government side, it was also indictment embezzlement tax and money laundering will be hovering to you, on the total amount of wealth you have. very difficult if you do not compromise or bribe state officials .

You can't save on taxes when buying/selling bitcoin using local trading platforms. But you can save taxes with bitcoin on;
1. Trade bitcoin on localbitcoins.com like p2p trading platforms or in platforms where verification is not mandatory.
2. You don't have to pay taxes on bitcoin transactions like when paying someone aboard or within your country.
3. You can store millions of $ worth bitcoin without getting noticed by others, buy bitcoin from local traders not from local trading platforms.

You are right.If the governments say that they would tax bitcoin income,it means they are indirectly recognizing bitcoin as legal.That would be more helpful for bitcoin progress.Bitcoin users can buy bitcoins without any fear of ban in the future.

I think there is no taxes on bitcoins.Government cannot give or put taxes on buying bitcoins since bitcoins are not regulated and controlled by the government,it is a NGO who launched it.Taxes may just apply when you convert your bitcoins into  cash and cashit out i think but never in investing fiat to bitcoins

NY Post mentioning Bitcoin qualifies this thread getting moved over to Press section https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=77.0

And it is indeed good advertising that they draw the reader's attention both on tax evasion chances and Bitcoin, two things readers would not have recognized otherwise as a possibility. There is no such thing as bad advertising.

I think it will still depends.  it will depend if  a certain country or government will recognized bitcoin.. if they will then we will finally pay taxes and I think we can't escape that .  but if they don't then good for us cause we will don't need to pay taxes if we have bitcoin..

Usually the people trying to avoid paying taxs, or frauding the system for not paying taxs, are the same people who complaint about their country saying their hospitals are bad, old infrastructures, bad roads, no money for the nationnal education system, ect. i find them very funny.

This news is posted by newyorkpost, and it's government regulation is just valid in the US. I don't know how much exactly they take the taxes, because I don't live in that country. But maybe, the taxes is same like what they take from the income tax, how much you earn the profit from something government will take few percent taxes.

NGO  ??? :o LOL

Government can easily put taxes on all buying/selling of bitcoins if you are using local exchange and they will also ask for all your personal documents before you can make any trades. Bitcoin is not meant for this, search for local guy near you and make p2p trades rather than going through all this regulation, verification and surveillance.

I love all the 'I'm not paying tax on Bitcoin because it's on, like, the internet' posts. Good luck with that one, young man.

There's a million other things you can opt out of paying taxes on too. That doesn't mean you won't get ravaged if they find out about it.

If anyone is officially making business and especially it happens in usa, there is no chanse to avoid taxes. Well, if you offer bitcoin service, you have to make official agreement with goverment, so when you offer clients to pay you with bitcoin, goverment can to control your wallet and see all transactions.
Well, that's not written in that news but this is my opinion.

You should really add "maybe" , "in the future"  and of course "in the US"

Honestly I don't know if in my country more than half of us really pay all the taxes and the right amount.
We don't even have to tell the government what we earn yearly, nobody gives a damn if transfers are less than 10k euros it's all shrouded in darkness more than the darknet.

Probably 99% of the people in charge don't have a clue what bitcoin is.

But in an age where cash is replaced faster and faster by other methods of payments, bitcoin will also be pretty easy to trace.
Goodbye old times:)

localbitcoins.com can wipe squeaky clean the trace.

The address that they give to you to store bitcoin is not the same address they will use to send bitcoin to your wallet.
Thus those who are tracing your address given by localbitcoins will not be able to trace to that address of yours in your private wallet.
The same applies if you want to wipe clean the trace you left with address from your private wallet.
Just send all the bitcoins from your private wallet to the address given by localbitcoins, then send them to another address that is new.
All traces gone!

Each must have taxable income by the government, it is if you want to exchange bitcoin to your account you definitely taxable, and if you you do not want to redeem the balance you have, the tax would not exist.
If all official government with their bitcoin bitcoin then any earnings prior to the account in exchange will even taxable.

It's a good sign they start to think how to tax investment in Bitcoin, but that definitely won't be easy to do. I have a vague notion of how taxation works but as far as I know the scheme to tax everyone properly wasn't yet invented. Many rich people, even without resort to Bitcoin, constantly avoid taxation and only a few of them are getting caught.

Everyone who is working does pay its  taxes unless and until you are from a country like UAE and some Arab countries where there is no tax but the rest of the world are entitled to pay the taxes and it is a matter of time that each and every government will try to tap into the wealth of bitcoin and wants a share from the returns ,still i am paying my taxes for a long time for my online earnings because it is mandatory to file it in my tax returns to avoid legal troubles.

And this solves..... NOTHING.
I can change the bills from my left pocket to my right with no problem.

The problem is when you have to spend your bitcoins.
What are you going to do , pay the pizza guy and have him deliver you pizza in the street or in the janitor room next block?
Buy a car... with a fake name?
Buy a home with a fake name and pretend you're not the owner although you've lived there for 10 years?

You can hide your bitcoins, that's certain but how can you hide them when you use them to buy something?

Believe me, you can pay taxes, and still have all that shit in your country, because whoever is in charge is interested in taking your money in his pockets instead of developing any thing that worth the money taken. We, here, pay expensive taxes compared to wages, and still see shit everywhere.

I use and already invested in bitcoin but i can avoid the taxes? So what i think we can still avoid the tax just like me. I just use my fiat money and buy a lot of bitcoins and when i earn from my investments, I sell them and withdraw it without any minus amount in my money, so i don't think that if you use bitcoin then you can't avoid tax because bitcoin is decentralized and no one is controlling it so it is a tax free currency.

Bitcoin's virtual currency is back on the agenda after the European Court of Justice has ruled that the exchange rate of digital currency should not be taxed. In practice this puts bitcoin in line with 'traditional' money. It is important for businesses across Europe that there is finally a decision regarding taxes and for many this means recovering money from tax authorities.

Would you still have to pay taxes if you'd never exchange those Bitcoins for fiat and just use your profits to buy goods with? (in the US)
If so, how would they even be able to check if you're doing so?

Same for other crypto-currencies that are more anonymous. 

Naw, more likely investing into fireworks like 59 rockets that don't hit a damn, by 1 million dollars each. And seemingly the supplier's stock notation took a healthy +1.5% because they raised the price on each rocket up to 1.5 million dollars. Resupplying will become a happy dance.
That's the situation today. How much will a further war adventure in Syria cost us?

You can, is as easy as working for bitcoin instead of buying it. Work for btc, get paid, don't report it, gov can never know.

Of course, you must report everything to the government, this is not advice. Report it or you are going to hell etc.

Not saying I want to avoid tax, but I think if one day I can have substantial amounts for bitcoin, I only need exchange a little every month to my savings and so on... which legally in my country is a little tax exempted. Many things I can use to claim tax exempt so I am not worried.

Its a lot easier to avoid taxes with bitcoin then without. Its not just about avoiding taxes, don't forget about the 4% inflation rate, People who hold their money in US dollars lose 4% of their buying power every year if not more.
Fuck inflation and fuck paying for wars you don't agree with. The US government has been usurped by global corporations and the military industrial complex. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are now motivated by greed and a false sense of superiority and entitlement to rule. Most laws are written by lobbyists and passed into law on the backs of campaign contributions.    I don't want to pay for private prisons or a god dam boarder wall.  

Is this really true and if that is the case then that is a great thing as that will deter people who are against bitcoin and for the governments who are trying to learn about bitcoin and trying to tap into the revenue system. Governments should take proactive steps to learn about the fundamentals before making any decisions.

We can obviously feel the taxes not just directly because of the fees that bitcoin exchanges applied when using their services like deposits and withdrawals. And just by looking at the margin of their buy and sell rates especially when the price of bitcoin is considered as high, we can see that it's far from being profitable when you do buy and sell on that said exchanges. Even you have some hardware wallet with bitcoin loaded, still you will use an exchange services to fully use your bitcoin by withdrawing it. And to add, withdrawal fees are vary depends on the chosen payment method.

But that is fine in some of the cases as for them to become legal, they needs to comply with the government rules plus the fact that we really need their services so really expect some fees.

I had experience reporting income taxes for online earnings and it was very difficult to do.
They just didn't know right code or business activity, where to put my earnings.
So, if I will try to report earnings in bitcoin, they will be even more confuse :)
It's fact that many national laws don't follow new, modern ways of doing business or earning on Internet.
If you keep funds in your btc wallet, you are safe.
If you try to exchange btc funds to your local currency, than you may have problem.

Well I guess in some country you can avoid taxes even though your into bitcoin like here in the Philippines, I think our government has still no idea about bitcoin because they are so busy fixing and making things right in our community like drug pushers and corrupt government officials.

I don't think so. I think you're just not informed about things. Most countries knows bitcoin particularly if there is a sudden increase of bitcoin volume

on it just like what happens on Philippines. The government released a new regulation regarding virtual currencies and bitcoin is one of them.

Exchanges there are now required to register themselves as a money transfer business that's why exchanges there also requires verification.

I'll leave the link http://www.bsp.gov.ph/regulations/regulations.asp?id=3748

The exchanges are the "Achilles heel" when you are talking about anonymity because of their much security check. But this is true only in countries that recognize BTC as an asset (which is a good thing).
When you choose a buying method that protects your identity, there is no way to the government to tax it.

That localbitcoins.com is probably the best market to buy and sell bitcoins with high level of privacy without the need for a copy of your DNA.
You can shift your bitcoins around between your private wallet and localbitcoins' "wallet" to wipe clean any traces of ownership (unless localbitcoins betrays you).
And it has this escrow service to protect the buyers (in online purchases) from cheating sellers.
So why aren't you guys using localbitcoins for your trades?
Do you know your personal details submitted to the exchanges can be sold to 3rd party and/or be used against you in the future.
I can see (even years ago) many bitcoin service providers are taking their own liberty to collect customers' information even though there is NO law in place requiring so, under the pretense that they are doing this voluntarily for anti-money laundering.
Righttttttttt........

By right you should be running away in the other direction when you encounter such bitcoin service provider.

In a way, regulated exchanges open the door for merchants to accept Bitcoin through payment processors. The government is fine with a

regulated environment for Bitcoin use, because through strict KYC/AML regulations they can track and monitor financial activities. You will

not find a "full anonymous" payment option that will not be banned by governments at some point in time.  >:(

If you read the article it's only says Irs wants people to declare it under the form, but it's clearly evident they are helpless as they cannot do anything as they will. Never know who uses Bitcoins. So contrary to op and article Bitcoin is yet tax free, until you are foolish and decided to show them. The only thing here I agree with op is that, the government has started accepting Bitcoins. This should be good news and let's hope they start accepting Bitcoins as a second currency that would be nice.

I do not believe exchanges are proper intermediary for merchants to accept and process bitcoin transactions.

1. What if the merchants sell the bitcoins right away? They will be selling it at the exchanges.
2. If the buyer that spends bitcoin on the merchants do not, at the same time, or shortly thereafter, buy the same amount of bitcoin at the exchanges, then there will be a very strong downward force on bitcoin price as lots of merchants will be selling their bitcoins right away for fiat, thus supply overwhelming demand --> lower/falling price.
3. Bitcoins bought and sold at the exchanges are DIFFERENT from bitcoins spent on merchants, as bitcoins traded at exchanges come with leverage and thus most of them are phantom bitcoins.
4. Bitcoins spent on the merchants will not be those acquired by withdrawing from the exchanges, but acquired through p2p market like localbitcoins.
5. If all supply of bitcoins acquired from localbitcoins are spent on the merchants, which subsequently are sold at the exchanges, then the actual supply of bitcoin will be extremely distorted.
6. As bitcoins traded at exchanges cannot be withdrawn en masse from the exchanges (because most of them are phantom, fake), thus the thesis that exchanges are there to serve the merchants accepting payment in bitcoin will be extremely short-lived, not viable, impractical, and will be a great loss to everyone that participate in such relationship.

Thus if bitcoin is to be successfully accepted by merchants en masse, there needs to be a sort of "bank" that readily accepts bitcoin for fiat.

Guess I'm wrong then, It's just that every time I watch the news, it's always been about drugs and corruptions and I just assumed that our government doesn't really pay much attention to others important things like bitcoin as to what it can do to our economic growth.

The biggest problem with converting bitcoins to fiat is in not being anonymous.
Governments may easily ask cryptocurrency exchanges for sensitive data about users, and they will list transactions to particular sellers.
You can also just not tell anyone about your bitcoins, and withdrawals to fiat later but that way is risky, there is always a chance that IRS will somehow know about it.

In my opinion, the best possible way would be to just pay taxes for bitcoin/fiat transactions.
It is possible that the tax from cryptocurrencies isn't high in your country, so you can just save most of the money from the trade you made.

but to me i think it can only be possible when government will consider it as legal currency, only thne they can impose tax on bitcoin. otherwise there is no tax on any illegal item.

I used to like Coinbase until they started to sell out to the media and the IRS. It's possible to get Bitcoin and use Bitcoin even without the need of purchasing it on Exchanges. Bitcoin could get purchased pretty much off the paper trail when accessing places like LocalBitcoins and websites that feature person to person payments.
The article just states that Coinbase is trying to get more people not to use Bitcoin and the price won’t be that high because of that situation until something changes.

No no no... We can avoid taxes. That's what we've been doing for several years and we'll do next years even though the great powers want us not to do so!

Yeah exactly, there is a choice here for the government to make.

To either acknowledge bitcoin as a functional currency that has the potential to overtake fiat, or to let it slide and nobody pays taxes on bitcoin holdings and profits they make out of that.

But either of these is favorable for the government.

Interesting case :)

While few people use Bitcoins and it doesn't affect the countrie's economy a lot, governments won't do any resistance against the currency and won't try to tax us, it would be a waste of time for them and a desnecessary decision. But when more people start using Bitcoin the governments will start menacing the crypto enthusiasts with extra fees and nasty things like that... Anyway, it won't happen soon, it's not going to happen now.

I doubt that there has been anyone who, at some part in their consciousness, believes that they will be able to avoid all the taxes that they would otherwise experience if they were using conventional methods. I know I sure as hell expect taxes when I change my Bitcoin into fiat.

The government doesn't have to think something is necessarily profitable for them to want to tax it, they just have to be able to levy some kind of tax on it if there is some potential to make some kind of money.

It seems the government wants their share of the pie in Bitcoin, targeting exchanges to spy on their clients Bitcoin transaction and earnings with it.  But I guess this is only limited to the exchanges but not on peer to peer transaction where people are able to transact with Bitcoin and goods directly.  So I guess there is still way to avoid taxes from the government.

Definitely interesting.

The government is basiclaly saying that bitcoin is a good currency to make profits out of, and this is why you need to pay taxes on it just like any other legitimate asset you may be holding.

They're basically saying that bitcoin is legit, it's not a scam.

More great news for BTC :D

Honestly there is no scam attempt in bitcoin if you are just scam by using bitcoin it is your mistake you are not using trust ways to not scam by someone..
And i think like other said it is a good news but just lets hope that they are not added a taxes also in bitcoin that is why we are using bitcoin because of anonymity and freedom.

Well in my country Im not worried about taxes for bitcoin seems my goverment still didnt recognize bitcoin for this purpose

The regulations only apply in usa or other countries which already issued regulations about exchanges and bitcoin such as China or Japan. If you buy-sell bitcoin through exchanges, gov may sniff large amount transactions and exchanges should provide information about their customer in case something happens but luckily there's no such regulations about bitcoin taxes in my place and we may consider transaction fees as the way for exchanges paying their taxes, so we pay it indirectly. However, I agree if no one knows you hold big amount of bitcoin outside the exchanges, gov cannot tax it.

Yeah, this is great news for bitcoin.

Government is finally trying to implement their taxation on bitcoin because they see that bitcoin is now so big of a market that it cannot be ignored anymore. People are conducting bitcoin transactions all over the world on a daily basis, and the government is finally seeing that there is something to exploit here.

It also means that the govt of the US is realising that bitcoin is actually functional, not just something that you buy to buy drugs with.

It is a great investment vehicle, which is why they are now enforcing already existing laws on bitcoin.

Very good news! It only signifies that government is now starting to recognize bitcoin. And here in my country, I can say that I'm a contributor for the tax of the local exchange that I've been using, why? Because they are registered and they pay tax and with the service that I've been using, there is a hidden taxation that isn't heavy to be considered as burden. The same thing as what that article is saying.

Bitcoin will be regulated in the near future that is for sure as this is the future of currency. The governments cannot deny this, this is why they are really pushing for its regulation nowadays. It might not be as good if it would be really restrictive and it could possibly hinder the benefits of bitcoins and other crypto.

Avoiding to pay the taxs is no different than cheating your country. And it's a bad behavior. Taxs are what help to make your own country better, remember that. I am happy to pay taxs and i could be more happy if i have more taxs to pay because it's mean i am making more income. Big firms are the champion when it's about taxs evasion, you ca not imagine the millions they are cheating from your gov. and so cheating you. And because it's about bitcoin is not an excuse as well.

If the taxes were used only to provide the countries and their citizens a better life pretty sure no one would be bored and pissed to contribute, politicians does steal those tax for their own purposes, soo if they have an eye over crytpo world already is because they wanna more money. Im pretty sure the countries cant check all finances neither know total bitcoins each person has, if someone invest 100k dollars and then some months later withdraw just 100k dollars, even having 200k dollars in crypto value, how the countrie will know those, and there are several ways to get those funds out without expose to banks.

I think as long as you don't exchange them into fiat ,you can't to pay taxes,but if you have to exchange them into fiat,then you have to pay taxes because the gov know your money!

I think its pretty easy to circumvent tax with bitcoin. Any bitcoin earnings you make you can trade on a peer to peer market  without making a blip, you can use that cash to purchase household items and consumables, and save your taxed earnings. Inversely, if you can spend the Bitcoin directly on household goods, you can do the same without having to involve anyone else in the transaction. But it's a gamble, they will bury you if they catch you.

I am happy that the news is from New-York and not the entire world because if that policy or model whatsoever, is going to work there, I am sure its far from working in most other countries. Over here, its definitely possible to avoid taxes if one is exchanging to Fiat on a bit by bit basis rather than once which might attract unnecessary attention by banks and regulatory authorities. Aside that, I am sure I can pull it off without any detection.

that's right if you will hold btc without exchanging it into your local fiat it wont be taxable but after you exchange it for sure taxes will be implemented maybe not directly to you but to the service that you will going to use and how you will withdraw it and send it your account.

Counterpoint: Yes you can  ;) just don't be stupid about it and make sure you're anonymous. It also depends on what country you're in and how badly they're cracking down on this.

Unless they don't want to recognize bitcoin that it can generate good amount for the taxation of a country. But I know it that one day they are going to enter also the scene of bitcoin, they will have to take over and monitor the local exchanges that will be used for cashing out bitcoin and each cash out should be taxable. I hate that day if it happens.

If you want to exchange your bitcoin into fiat you can't avoid the taxes, Unless it was peer to peer transaction by that you can avoid taxes because you are only trading with a human but in terms of using web wallet to exchange it into fiat the government is there and you can't avoid the taxes by exchanging it there's fee that is waiting for you.

That is how the rules are in my country too. For exchanging bitcoins into fiat you have to pay the taxes. You only don't have to pay for just holding the coins. But since bitcoin still isn't fully regulated there might be a chance that tax authorities just skip some of transactions.

Sure you can!

You only pay taxes when you sell your bitcoin...don't sell and don't pay taxes. Of course, you must also make deposits with after tax dollars, but we're only talking about investing here.

actually this is one of the reason why people use bitcoin because of the bitcoin animosity the bitcoin don't pay taxes .,
But even if it don't pay taxes you should be careful in the transaction fees and or the exchange rate..
Bitcoin is popular now days so definitely recommend using bitcoin and earning bitcoin for a good profit..

Any government is so willing to tax anyone as long as there is an income earned whether you earn it from a recognized legal asset or not. I think I read somewhere that government can file a tax evasion case even if you are involved in illegal drugs because you earned some money out of that but it does not mean that the government is recognizing illegal drug trafficking to be a business worth pursuing. However, the trend right is for government to recognize Bitcoin as an asset so that if you sell your Bitcoin and you gain profits the government can then charge you tax and can file tax evasion case if you fail to declare the transaction. Of course, right now we can still evade because there are many creative ways to do so.

well then that is a false assumption that people who are in bitcoin because of what you said, are making.
bitcoin is neither anonymous nor free of tax.
the anonymity part is obvious, you can even google about it or even read the bitcoin.org page to see it is not.

and about taxes, there may be countries which has not yet decided but in most places you have to pay taxes when using bitcoin.

this depend it's controversial, some government may track your bitcoin address to see if you are going to use them to purchase soemthing and avoid paying taxes

they can do this if you use some known exchange which have link with are controlled by your government, but anyway i doubt you can live 100% on bitcoin, and try this way to avoid taxes, not feasible for now

I think government does not have any rights for us bitcoin users to pay their taxes just because we are doing or buying some stuffs online with bitcoin, as long as it is legal then there is nothing to worry about, buy the things that you want online and don't worry for the taxes because bitcoin is tax free and it is decentralized so the government will not touch your bitcoin money.

If you are holding bitcoins for future savings and don't trade or exchange everyday or frequently then I guess you can evade the taxes because the government's may not know how much bitcoins you have.
Also if you exchange them with your local dealer or friends then the taxes can be evaded. It's not a good thing to evade the taxes but there are some people who can't afford to pay them.
Most if the people are here because they know that they can evade taxes really with bitcoins.

As of now ,in our country we don't have any taxes on bitcoin transaction, so there is no problem yet. It will be hard to government  to control or monitored taxes on bitcoin so why bother put another work for their employees,maybe it will only happen when there are in built structures like bank or atm machine that's the only time they will put tax on it.

The way you say it is a form of money laundering, it is an illegal act, you can be legally liable for such conduct. Bitcoin is a free virtual currency that is almost unmanaged, with only a handful of countries legalizing and managing it, so it is easily exploited for money laundering. And I think this is possible, so many people use it to evade taxes.

That depends from the country. No all the people who love, act or hodl bitcoin are united states citizens. In my country for example dhe word bitcoin is heard only two or three times at the media. And exist absolute silence from the authorities which need to regulate it. So you can do what you want because everything seems to be as in far west or wild wild west.

Investing in Bitcoin publicly is up to the person and the third-party Bitcoin provider that wants the information to be viewed by the IRS or even sold to them. This type of situation doesn't really matter because the third-party owner could do pretty much whatever he or she wants within their own Business. The person that is purchasing Bitcoin from the third-party has the option to purchase from the third-party or from people that are off those major Bitcoin Exchanges. LocalBitcoins is one of the websites that allow people to stay far from the IRS.

i think people will even use bitcoin if there is tax on it. i do not think that people are using it because there is no tax on bitcoin to me i think people are using it because there are so many other advantages of bitcoin .

i think it will be more better if government will put tax on bitcoin because the government have to declare bitcoin as legal currency before putting tax on bitcoin, as they cannot impose tax on illegal items.

If governments all over the world are able to censor every Bitcoin transactions to enforce a tax on it, then it's all the better for us because that will make them accept Bitcoin and approve its usage but I doubt if they can as Bitcoin is still decentralized but until it is centralized I don't see how they are going to be able to tax us.

If the government manages to have an important saying in Bitcoin, even to the extent of forcing through certain measures that will allow them to charge tax directly or indirectly, people will simply look for an alternative coin. But I am glad that there is no such a possibility as it is nothing more than a fantasy. Bitcoin is, and will remain a safe haven for people looking to avoid the banking and governmental system. Nothing is going to change that.

That's a good point. Another thing that makes me think that the US government recognizes Bitcoin as legitimate is that after the government seized the Silk Road Bitcoins, they auctioned them off to the public. They can't really auction something off and then declare it to be illegal.

Silk Road coins are different though, since they were used in illegal practices.  Equally, using a dollar to buy a knife and stab someone is going to be viewed as illegal by the US, but the money would still be in circulation.

It's not so easy to track Bitcoin transactions, though.  For the US government it would be a classic kind of police work, they'd have to shove a lot of clues together to figure it out for every major transaction and it really wouldn't be worth it.

Tax is a serious problem, my country is being tidied up the tax system so that all assets can be tracked. I will never save a large amount of money to put at risk due to loss and bitcoin never guarantee save from hacker.

I made investments into bitcoin (with trading altcoins) not for avoid taxes
because pay taxes on the countries is responsibility all of people in one countries,
also bitcoin is not for place for avoid taxes and for other illegal activity with bitcoin.

usually you can always afford to pay taxes, because tax are made for those people that earn a lot, if you have a very minimum income epr year, you are exempt from tax, at least it's how it work in some country

in fact poor people have to pay minimum tax if not zero tax anyway, position of bitcoin is not very clear for now, in some country, some of them will simply ignore that it exist and will not ask you anything, at least you are not doing illegal activity...

Very good points but is that not the exact same queries we can pose to normal banks, normal merchants and normal exchangers, all licence to do the same thing for normal money? Forex is still biggest market if looking at volume but majority of buy and sell is on margin meaning nobody actually exchanging currency, just promises to buy or sell:)

That's right and I know some of my friend who report their earning from bitcoin through their business in crypto world and fine with it, though, the ones who's going to charge you taxes might be confused their asses off and have no idea what it is but if you're explaining to them, they will give alternative ways. People who using bitcoin to avoid taxes is clearly have done similar things because avoid taxes have its punishment.

I’m not sure it would be that easy for a government to track bitcoin usage and whether or not people were trying to avoid taxes. I think it would be more work than the pay off they could potentially get my doing it too.
But, tax avoidance isn’t really why I at least and surely most people use Bitcoin so I don’t think regardless of the outcome that it really matters. A government needs taxes to run anyway.

Bitcoin does not really have tax because in some case it is not legal on all terms. It means the government don't have the power to control it and to change it. So taxes may be avoided in fact the term used in bitcoin is fee where will going to be a charged on every transaction for the development of bitcoin. For me fee is than taxes because on tax there is a chanced to have a corruption rather than fee is made to develop more the bitcoin itself.