Bitcoin Forum

The recent exposé about the Trump family finances shines a light on the ways in which the wealthiest Americans can avoid estate and gift taxes on the transfer of assets to their children.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/opinion/trump-bezos-estate-tax.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

"Like Donald Trump, many of the Forbes 400 acquired some or all of their wealth from their parents. These transfers of wealth pass entirely free of income taxes."

The measure of a well-functioning democracy is a tax system that fairly apportions its burdens.

Can blockchain and the inevitable virtual economy make the taxing system less disproportionate?

They could do this by issuing closed source currency, but then again, most transactions are already digital, it just lacks an open blockchain.

As far as taxing foreign currencies and neutral ones like bitcoin, I don't see how, they can only tax exchange deposits.

But the wealthy will always have resources to circumvent taxes. They can hire the best accountants and lawyers in the world and find ways to avoid the cut. Also in some countries taxes are nonsensically high which only incentive that behaviour.

Transfers of wealth to kids or heirs is not entirely free of income taxes. It's subject to estate taxes which equal 50%+ of the value being transferred. This is precisely why the Trump family had to commit fraud to transfer their father's wealth to the kids. They couldn't even set up a trust that would protect all the assets from probate.

Blockchain can't change or circumvent government tax laws.

Blockchain can enable transaction tracking and transparency. Blockchain make payments incredibly fast and transparent. Blockchain can't ensure that people report their income accurately or truthfully.

For the blockchain to be used to facilitate taxation. The individual has to have his assets in digital currency or represented adequately in the same ratio.
Anonymity would be a stumbling block.
And also bitcoin is decentralized, hence no taxes imposed on it, for now.

Most of the wealthiest Americans avoid taxes by transfering assets to charity foundations,not to their children.Look at Bill Gates,Warren Buffet and many billionaires.
However,I'm pretty sure that taxation can be implemented inside the blcokchian,as a part of the transaction fee.Anyway,I don't think that such taxation will be implemented.

A well-functioning democracy will not think about double taxing anything.

Taxes on inheritance are just stupid, that money has been already been taxed once and the parents have already been fleeced by the government, why tax it again. This is like that cartoon with Elmer and Bugs Bunny when from that 1 million inheritance he is left with a few cents.

And it doesn't matter how much that inheritance was, 1 million or 100$, it's still money that has been earned and taxed once. If you want a taxing system that is not disproportionate, have a flat tax, not a percentage.

There are many wealthy families in the united states. The Rockefellers, the JP Morgans, the Trumps. With the Estate Tax (aka Death Tax) being 40% one may wonder how wealthy families maintain their familial wealth if they pay a 40% tax every generation. The most simple explanation is: none of them pay the 40% estate tax. Many of us were aware of this, long before it was mainstream news. It is old information and not particularly news worthy.

Part of the problem with taxation is those living in poverty, and those in higher income brackets up to the middle class, are losing political and social influence. The scales are tipping in favor of one percenters, which in turn increases their influence while diminishing the influence of all others. Tax laws shift in favor of one percenters, to the detriment of all other social classes, as society feels the implications of this paradigm shift.

Bitcoin's open ledger could make it harder to hide lump sums of cash from tax authorities. This doesn't necessarily represent progress however as taxation regulatory policies are designed to reflect favortism towards wealthier demographics, who wield vastly more monetary and political influence.

To fix tax laws requires shifting influence in the opposite direction. Such a thing is not easy to achieve.

Already we are paying double tax for what we are earning once,we need to pay taxes when we exceed the limits for an individual in all the countries which is called income tax and then we need to pay tax to all the things which we were buying so already double tax for the people in democratic countries too.So it is not fair the currency taxation system so it will be something beneficial for the people when we have blockchain technology implemented.

Yes, it can be applied in all systems, especially taxes because the payment process is through many parties and long. With blockchain it can be faster, more accurate, transparent and permanent data.

Since no one can really tax them since it is fully transacted inside the blockchain, governments will have a hard time for it. Unless then can tax it through centralized exchanges.

Is there actually a well functioning democracy? To me it seems like a rigged game all the way through, regardless of what country it concerns.

My overall net worth in terms of fiat value (concerns savings, stocks, bonds, precious metals, crypto, etc) gets taxed year after year after year. The government doesn't care whether you gained net worth or lost it, as long as your net worth tops their set limits, you'll get taxed. It's the worst possible form of theft, especially with how you can't do anything about it.

If you refuse to pay what's due, your bank accounts will be frozen, and they'll seize the income from your employer till your "debt" is cleared. That's why I'm glad 75% of my net worth is in Bitcoin. I efficiently made sure that they won't be able to ruin my life by freezing/seezing all my legacy assets and accounts.

The effects of cryptocurrencies and the tax system will depend entirely on how much adoption takes place, if almost everyone adopts cryptocurrencies then it's likely there is going to be so much fiscal evasion that governments are going to make them illegal but that will probably not stop all of those evading taxes, if this happened for long enough it's possible that governments will have no choice but to become smaller.

For me, the blockchain does not affect the taxing system of the country because it seem like it helps the government to provide a good economy. Example, you use your digital money in buying stuffs that all you need and that stuffs is having a tax you purchase.

It is very difficult for now to show any affect of the crypto taxes on blockchain the tax will be paid by the user if they are willing and crypto market if grows and just like donation every one should pay some tax to their country exchange then it will be a good initiative but people use crypto to hide their wealth they will not be ready to pat one penny as tax.

If (and only if) blockchain become mainstream then maybe the tax system would be like ICO system, there will be proposals, people vote on smart-contract, then fund release if cap reached. Otherwise, the government would simply use old the old tax system. They will simply impose taxes on exchanges.

Well, that last part is true to some extent, but we also have to realize that even if it brings about transparency and transaction tracking, wallets are not necessarily attached to one single person which makes the idea of not being able to track P2P transactions before they can even say it is going to be taxed will be a hard thing to achieve.

The only way taxation can be effective will be through the exchanges, and just like you said, the chances to even evade tax without reporting your actual income is always going to be there somehow with blockchain and in that case, there would be some limit for the government when it comes to taxation.

No, there is not, otherwise, we probably wouldn't be here complaining about the current system.  ;D

My reply was mainly addressed at the OP who said:
as I don't think in a democracy we should have proportions.

In my country, we have a flat 4.5% tax that goes to health coverage, and to me it doesn't sound too fair seeing one guy paying 500 euros and another 50 and getting the same treatment.
I'm pretty sure the guy with an x10 contribution won't get 10 kidney transplants and the other one just one. Of course, it's impossible also to make everyone pay for it equally and have a viable health system ...so we're back to the utopia that will never be.

As for the tax, if I buy a house worth 100 000 which I'm going to leave to my son, I'm already paying another 100 000 as income taxes before making those, I'm paying another 11 000 in VAT, around 300 euros in local taxes and mandatory insurance every year and then my son will have to pay 25-50% inheritance tax?

Insane is a mild word for this, we're paying it already 3 times, and what do we get in return ?!
I'm no Trump or any other Forbes T100 fan, but I can understand them in this situation.


Just no!
ICO's have screwed enough people already, we don't need an ICO to ruin an entire country.
You don't need tokens or crypto or a blockchain to run a modern tax system. The blockchain is a simple distributed database, we already have those in almost every developed country, no need for fancy words schemes.

My bad, bounties ruin my brain.

C'mon man, no need to explain what is blockchain to me.

When cryptocurrencies used in the everyday transaction (perhaps replacing fiat), the government will lose control of money, they couldn't force people to pay taxes. Therefore, governance would be similar to decred, smart cash, etc., with proposals (vote using smart contract).

If you can somehow manage to convince governments to use blockchain to stop the corruption you will face a lot of backlash. Not just from rich people but also from all types of people, first of all rich people control almost all the sides of business world and definitely the media as well, as soon as you do something that will stop corruption you will have to say no to probably billions of dollars from bribes, which means you are better than most people because almost everyone would accept world shattering amount of money however it also means you will face all kinds of media scrunity because rich people will give order to ruin your life on television everyday.

Peer to peer transactions will be a hard thing to track down, let alone be able to get taxed, so one way or the other; this would affect the taxing system. The only spot where taxation may actually be applicable is when we get to see people making use of the exchanges.

In the long run, most exchanges will be regulated anyway and as long as you are making fiat deposits and withdrawal, you will definitely get taxed. Judging from the fact that exchanges are centralized, and apparently, everyone's activities can be monitored, and in that case, it is more like you being subjected to capital gain tax. Still, here we need to take note of how popular those decentralized exchanges are becoming day to day. I guess, governments may need to think about switching over to new type of taxation rather than just taxing on income stream nor taxing while transacting.

Just taxing all the citizens with some flat fee (every month or year) might be a solutions for governments in long run ;).

At least you know the culprit...


It doesn't matter if you wanted to say DAO and not ICO the whole idea that we need something blockchain related for people to cast an electronic vote is childish. Two years before bitcoin was even born we had a whole country using a cryptographic vote in their election. So, no need for tokens, blockchains, ICO, DAO, or AOE. (in case you're wondering, AOE stands for Age of Empires)

Second, people have this weird idea that once cryptos take over governments won't be able to tax you. Seriously? Governments were able to tax you when there were no credit/debit cards, when there were no cash registers and receipts, there were able to tax you even when there was no fiat!!!!

What do you think it will change if cryptos take over?

A company will still need to employ people and pay them and have a balance sheet ready for fiscal inspectors, they will need to declare what they pay you, if they fail to do so, they are going to be in trouble and they won't risk millions for pennies.

Same for stores, they will have to declare what they have sold and they are going to pay both the VAT and the tax on profits otherwise they are going to be in trouble.
Of course, you can hide the income for 100 beers sold today, but how the hell are you going to hide the fact that you purchased and sold those 100 beers when both the beer factory and the customers will demands receipt for those?

This wet dream that suddenly the government won't be able to tax you once you deal in crypto is nothing more than a dream, and a pretty silly one from my point of view.

If what you mean by "childish" is having imaginations then yes, voting on a blockchain is childish. I saw how ETH smart contracts enabling "carbon vote" and realized how cool it was.

It is not weird though, I reckon Obama also worried about the "Swiss offshore account in your pocket. (https://youtu.be/fV8ScIImSCo?t=15)"

I know about accounting, it has to be audited. The way the government detects corporation's fishy behavior is by sniffing corporation's, shareholders', and officers' bank account. Without access to the actual balance/accounts, tax enforcement would be difficult.

Maybe you just need more imagination lol. It is silly for now, but I won't dismiss the possibility of these things to be true just because it seems impossible for now, even if the odds are so small.

I think blockcahin won't affect nor they applied any tax in future. Since paying tax mean giving money to government and help to improve our country and economy. But block chain technology is different and don't have any relation with government policy.

Wow.  The head of state still runs from paying taxes, I am amazed by the current rulers of the countries!

It doesn't matter how cool or if it is possible.
You vote also using WOW accounts and it would be cool, the problem is that it means another system to be put up in place when we already have an existent one.  Id cards with cryptographic signatures have been out for a decade, why add a blockchain, a token, another wallet when the solution is there, working and tested in a national election?


No idea what that has to do with the discussion so I'll pass


I live in eastern Europe, and we're seriously lagging behind compared to the western part but even here, it takes two clicks to check on a company, or a person to see where he is hired and how much he makes and what taxes he has paid. And...no blockchain, simple databases.


Exactly what I asked you...
How do you see this tax evasion going on? How are you going to hide your income, your property, your ...everything?

The government has to change one law, increase the penalty for tax evasion to 20-30 years in prison.
Look at how Americans are paying their taxes although they despise them from the core of their heart, imagine increasing the punishment ten folds, who do you think it will take those risks? Even hardcore bitcoins here are paying their taxes, look at how many discussions we have on this in the legal board and on many others.

So, how do you envision this tax evasion going on?

I do not think this is a productive discussion since we are talking about future and uncertainties, much like a discussion about VoIP when there are landlines everywhere. Why this, why that? Does not matter this is just hypothetical. Moreover, you are not open to the new idea. But the most important thing, this is getting off-topic. OP talk about double taxation (tax on inheritance) lol

One most important reason is privacy. I would say with the carbon vote you would be able to vote anonymously.
Then until now, people were getting used to the idea of an equal vote (one person one vote), each person/vote carry the exact same strength. With the carbon vote, voting power determined by the balance (or anything you want in the smart contract).

Feels weird man https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X17302362

In the database, we know about "garbage in, garbage out" the fact that you could check people's wealth easily is because they (average Joes) could not hide it. If they have Swiss offshore accounts in their pocket, the government need to rely more on self-assessment tax, which depends on honesty.

Ok, lets cut the off-topic but I need to add two things..


Of course, we talk about the future, if we talked about the present it would be quite boring, wouldn't it?  :P


The first word I read there was "Russia", and for most people in the former Warsaw Pact block, well...how can I say it without being rude to the Russian born users, we kind of don't see Russia as really being an example of a truly European country or being part of Europe. 50 years are pretty hard to forget even now. Even without that, Russia is a really bad example of reducing bureaucracy and digitalizing services.
 

The transactions on the blockchain are transparent, and there is no way to delete records. The blockchain provides the source of the transaction, traceability and transparency!
This provides a basis for tax collection and changes the entire tax system!

When you send money you just pay little fee to block chain not giving any tax that's why we all love bitcoin and block chain technology its just a tax free plat form.

The blockchain technology can help prevent fraud in tax collection and solve the problem of falsifying tax bills, and these are revenues to the budget and benefits to the state.

But that's not all they want. :-\

once transaction is blockchain, you can hardly escape from taxation. government can track your money. which mean better taxation.

As far as i can see, blockchains habe a way of being transparent like any other means of exchange can do. Although blockchains only reflect where a coin is from to a wallet it would be. A person could own multiple wallets or could have a wallet under a different name. Not unless we have KYCs on all wallets to avoid such a transaction.

I don't think so. I mean blockchain technology is as transparent as they could be. Everyone could see transactions and i believe in the future that we can look all these transactions up in a touch of a button. This way, we can see and verify more clearly the taxes we need to apply. Bonus, no need to aoply for tax returns.

If there was to be a completely electronic national currency that is run on a blockchain, then I think that it would make it a lot easier for countries to see everyone's spendings and income, in order to give an accurate tax assessment.

However, that would obviously raise privacy and surveillance issues which imo, definitely outweigh the benefits that this system brings to the government in terms of collecting its revenue.

This really has nothing to do with the decentralised cryptos that we are familiar with, though. Right now, tax rules are still being written to clarify the situation with bitcoin and other cryptos. There are still a lot of ambiguities, but in the future, they will be cleared up. But countries nationalising cryptos of its own could be possible in the future, with decentralised cryptos being used in parallel.

In my opinion, utilizing blockchain technology in the taxation system is an efficient way. By utilizing blockchain technology, the tax system will strive for safe transparency, without having to disclose data that is very confidential.

Apparently people can pay their taxes with bitcoin in ohio state now. Don't think that it is a minor thing, if people can start paying their taxes in one state, in only goes faster. Weed has been around for decades and governments have been fighting against it and only recently has started to legalize weed in some states, if ohio started to accept bitcoin as a payment for taxes it means the rest of the country is watching and just like colarado getting a lot of weed money, if ohio gets a lot of taxes from bitcoin it means other states will want to do the same for more money for their pockets. Hence it might look small for now but it means a lot for the future, bitcoin is literally accepted by a government as a payment to them, not only acceptable to use but also supported. This only means amazing things for all of us.