Bitcoin Forum

The author of this article might think that taxes is one reason, however, it is not the main reason. The main reason is most people only use bitcoin for holding and speculation because of its moon math characteristic. We should not be in denial about this.

However, it is a good article about the absurdity of taxation in the cryptospace.

https://wizzley.com/static/uploads/en/module/text/2012/05/04/2012-05-04_17-04-12_251.288x287.jpg

Today, almost no one is using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for everyday payments. There are a few different reasons for this, including Bitcoin’s price volatility, but that’s far from the only problem. While Bitcoin has become a more stable store of value over time, the tax implications of using Bitcoin for payments remain an impediment to widespread use.

While some Bitcoin enthusiasts have no issue with breaking or bending the law to avoid capital gains taxes on cryptocurrency payments, the mainstream consumer does not necessarily want to take that kind of risk. This issue around capital gains taxes on Bitcoin payments was debated by Bitrefill CEO Sergej Kotliar and ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees at the Bitcoin 2019 conference over the summer.

But it’s not just about willingness to play by the rules. Even those who are perfectly willing to pay taxes on Bitcoin payments are faced with headaches and complicated accounting just to make sure they aren’t breaking the law.

Read in full https://www.longhash.com/en/news/3210

There are certainly many good reasons why ordinary consumers are not magically entranced with Bitcoin. We have to remember that the romanticized reasons for the existence of Bitcoin in 2018-2019 during the economic debacle suffered by the USA are now slowly fading and are now subtle. Now, of course, one big reason for the difficulty in the adoption of Bitcoin by the many merchants is the lack of business volume coming from people who have Bitcoin, all because they are just holding the asset in preparation for that possible bull run. And we could not actually blame these people because for sure Bitcoin is a good digital asset to hold for profitability purpose. On the other hand, there is also no denying that tax matters are not helping the problem. As an ordinary consumer and tax payer myself, why would I want to be courting complications when I have many other personal and work-related things to attend to? That is not just making sense. And we could not expect that the government and the tax collecting agency to just magically simplify things for Bitcoin taxation because they themselves are having a hard time on how to treat Bitcoin. This can be taking a lot of time before things can be harmonized and rationalized.

regular folks avoid paying taxes all the time. i doubt most people are considering tax implications when spending a few hundred or thousand bucks from their bitcoin stash. most people are also smart enough to know bitrefill, egifter, overstock etc aren't sending out tax reports for buying goods and services.

the real reason people aren't spending is because they're hoarding instead. when the price goes up exponentially again, we'll see another big increase in spending as a form of profit taking. (https://qz.com/931810/cheapair-and-bitpay-data-show-rising-bitcoin-btc-payment-volumes/)

Alongside waiting for a less rainy day, the prime reason no one spends it is because hardly anyone earns in it. If that ever changes then I would expect much more flow. It can be a right grind buying it and no one buys something to buy something else. If you have it arriving in your wallet every week that makes for a rather different mind set.

Satisfied people pay taxes much easier than those who do not benefit too much from their governments/states. If I am not entitled to free health insurance, a safe and well-paid job, clean air and water and some other basic things to live for, why would I even pay taxes?

It is also a misconception that when paying with BTC person is avoid tax, maybe in some countries this can be the case, but we have VAT (value-added tax) in EU from 17% to 27% (Hungary) so every time you pay/buy something you pay tax. I buy some things from time to time with BTC, and I think VAT is quite a sufficient contribution to the state on my part.

The volatility really to me is one impediments to payment of taxes. Putting it into perspective, one can buy 0.01btc say when the price is $100 i.e the value of bitcoin at the time stood at $10000 engage in series of trading till the end of the year thereafter having a net gain of .005btc meaning that his value of btc is 0.015. The twist however is that the price of btc is now is now $6000 which means that even though he has made profit, there is still a loss and because the tax authority would want the tax to be paid using USD, it becomes a problem whether to declare a loss or to declare a profit. This is an issue that needs to be clearly defined if there is going to be voluntary compliance for those who wants to pay.

Aren't Bitcoin transactions below $500 are exempt from taxes in the US? And as for the rest of the world, the tax reporting, especially for smaller amounts, isn't as tight as in the US. I personally never paid any taxes on my coins, and I probably won't have to, unless it will be some large transaction like buying a house. A lot of countries have VAT, so you pay your taxes regardless of currency that you use.

I disagree. Bitcoin's price volatility, the community's hodl mentality and bitcoin's monetary policy are certainly making many people spend their coins more sparingly. Give people bitcoins for nothing and I reckon they will not spend most of it if they knew what it is hehe.

That's the main issue.

If they expect people to comply with tax codes with BTC transactions then there should be easier mechanisms to find out how much liability you actually owe on your transactions, instead of vague guidelines that leave you exposed even if you think you did your taxes correctly.

Also, double taxation is a huge burden on BTC users. It makes no sense to charge both CGT and GST on BTC like in some jurisdictions.

I think it only applies to mining, and the amount is set to $400.


From what I read, all other transactions are subject to tax, whether it is just crypto trading or buying/selling something for Bitcoin. Maybe someone from the USA can confirm exactly what the rules are in case something is paid with Bitcoin. It would be truly unfair to have to pay double tax, VAT+extra tax just because something is paid with Bitcoin.

It's a bit hard to tell what's what as they have short term and long term capital gains and the short term aligns with income tax rates or something. In the UK you have an annual tax free allowance of about £12,000 for capital gains regardless of how long you've held which seems a lot simpler to me.

Yep, in a world where people already generally don't really do much about tax (and I'm talking about outside of the US), the writer thinks tax is what's keeping them from NOT paying with Bitcoin?

Need only take a look around in "the space" to see that for the most part, the "crypto enthusiast" has his/her interest in speculation and profit. Like OP says, moon money theories.

Pay for stuff with BTC? Please. That area of adoption is far, far from critical mass.

And there's a simple reason for this kind of treatment: resources

Tax offices have got to be targeted in the way they pursue people that don't conform to their code, and so going after people for every packet of chewing gum they buy with untaxed money isn't going to be worth the time and effort. This doesn't mean you should build that Lambo out of packets of chewing gum and matchsticks, I think you might start getting their attention again if you somehow pulled that off :D

It's such a niche part of this space. BitPay 2018 processed just over $1 billion worth of payments. If you put that against the +$1 trillion in on-chain value movements, it's an absolute joke. It's even more of a joke when there are large entities such as Roger Ver and Bitmain using BitPay as an exit point, so the actual amount in payments is much lower than that.

Sure, there are more payment gateways, but they all combined can't even tickle BitPay. Bitcoin is too speculative for one side of the market to spend, and too precious for the other side of the market to spend.

Paying nearly 10% sales tax on every purchase in the states already seems oppressive. Of course, we're expected to pay capital gains taxes up to 37% on top of sales tax. And if you trade or invest as a business, you owe an additional 15% in FICA taxes on your Bitcoin gains. It's just jaw-dropping when you think about it!

So, I don't blame anyone for spending their bitcoins to avoid taxes. Especially in the US, where most of our taxes are paying for really horrible wars and military expenditures from decades past anyway. The notion that our tax dollars are mostly funding vital services is a fallacy. It's highway robbery, that's all.

The article's body is only based on the whole assumption of businesses are holding crypto after the payments have been receive which in fact isn't the case most of the time. Some people hold it but for businesses wanting to have accurate income from the prices they have on their products they will always instantly convert it into cash, some payment processors like Bitpay and Coinbase Consumer also have that option where their customers will send BTC and what they will receive is a dollar equivalent for it. I don't know but I don't think that the author knows what he is talking about since I might understand if he is talking about small time people having a small business online but including big businesses that accept crypto and hodling it I don't think there is a big possibility of it in the first place.

Agree on what you have said. People would pay taxes willingly if they do saw that they can benefit out of it or they can see progress for those funds to be applied for development and other benefits into its citizens.
Just like yours, anytime i do purchase something then its already being calculated which tax is already included even into any services.Ive even tried to buy up something using crypto but still the
price in total included up the tax.Just wondering on how that merchant will calculate knowing about volatility of btc is high.Well its not my problem anymore. We are still on adoption phase when it comes to bitcoin payment and taxation.

no. there have been some bills introduced to congress like the token taxonomy act, (https://www.coindesk.com/us-lawmakers-file-bill-to-exempt-cryptocurrencies-from-securities-laws) which would exempt a total of $600 of capital gains per year from taxes if realized by spending on goods/services. (the per transaction amount wouldn't matter)

right now, there are no exemptions whatsoever.


that $400 threshold pertains to self-employment income. capital gains taxes are a totally separate issue. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc554

Thanks for the confirmation. That's bonkers. That makes a vast amount more work for the population, the services they use and the tax people. I wonder whether the piddling amounts they take actually pay for the extra bureaucracy.

Really, the whole thing's a total labyrinth, this thread is no doubt barely scraping the surface. It's highly likely that there are multiple taxes that even tax professionals are not paying through misinterpretation or being otherwise unaware; like the statute books overall, the tax code is so vast and complex that only skilled and diligent people can find either the loopholes or the gotchas that their contemporaries do not. Which makes it a great tool for political persecution; when everyone is breaking the law (unaware or not), you can make an example of anyone if you're powerful and a particular person or group is pissing you off.

There are also countries with zero VAT on certain things, especially food is in some from 10% to 0 %, not that I see too many people paying for groceries with bitcoin anyway. The system is stupid anyhow, full vat on dental care, reduced vat for hairdressing and therapeutical massage saloons.

As for the first part, I would say is half true.
I did pay tax on the profit I made from bitcoins this year, (of course, not quite all..half...around that :P) but right now even if I wanted to pay also again the income tax on things I purchased I would probably quit not because of the financial reason but the whole stupidity of the system where I would have to keep track of price, gains, every purchase, no way in hell I'm doing this, I'm better of with a fine!

Not a fan of the US system, not a fan of ours either.

I think one reason I don't see anyone mentioning is simple obliviousness. On /r/Bitcoin once in a while I'll see a relatively highly upvoted post about someplace accepting Bitcoin that I've known about for a long time and I can see a lot of users commenting that they didn't know said place accepts Bitcoin.

It's rare to see anyone from the US publicly acknowledge where taxpayer money goes, but what you say is one big truth. The mere thought that tax money goes to financing wars thousands of miles away from your country where mostly innocent people die is enough to make you want not to pay that tax. The USA may be called the largest democracy in the world, but I would never want to live in one like that.

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These are countries where governments somewhat care for their residents, so they reduce VAT on certain products. I have the same situation in my county, but even though VAT is reduced, prices remained the same - which is, of course, the result of the greed of merchants who saw an extra opportunity to make money.

The system is bad for people, but it is very good for people in power - if we think about it, nothing's changed since the Middle Ages, taxes are still being collected and sticks and swords have been replaced by tax officials and enforcement laws.

One of the main reasons why companies are not accepting Bitcoin as a payment option is the accounting and auditing of their books. Most auditors

do not know about Bitcoin, because they did not get that as part of their education and what they were taught are totally against what Bitcoin is.

When we want to introduce Bitcoin to merchants, they have many questions about the legality and also how it would be integrated into their

Point of sale systems. So there are definitely a lot of uncertainty and complexity that has to be addressed before merchants would be willing to

accept Bitcoin directly. A lot of them like the convenience of using Payment processors, because they avoid the legal issues. (When they work

with Payment processors, all bitcoins gets converted back to Fiat)  >:(

not for brand new businesses

You're talking about established businesses, who are more conservative as they have something to lose. People just starting out with fresher ideas are already risking everything on the venture e.g. openbazaar is gradually filling up it's search listings with exactly that kind of business

From a business perspective, that's all you need. I do not blame businesses for accepting Bitcoin through a payment gateway because they are just looking for that extra exposure and potentially extra revenue. You can claim to accept Bitcoin without even accepting it directly, that's some powerful free exposure right there. Even Peter Schiff does that.  :D

I'm pretty sure that we will reach a point in the future where merchants want to hold on to their coins, but it will need to be less volatile, and have more global acceptance so that they can use their coins to restock inventories similar to how they do it with fiat today.

Lightning will play a role there too because of instant transaction settlement, which reduces the exposure to Bitcoin's volatile nature even further because you don't have to wait 10-60 minutes depending on how many confirmations the other party demands. Interesting times we have ahead of us.

taxes would be the last reason to not be paying with bitcoins , the primary reason is the lack of businesses that would accept them first place
I would love to be paying with coins for my coffee , for example but alas , there are literally zero places that accept bitcoins where I live and only 2 bitcoin ATM
with atrociously high rates and when I tried to buy coins there it didn't even work  ???
the second reason is that people do not want to spend bitcoin expecting it to x100-1000
and the thought process is like this - I spend 0.01 which is 75$ now , but in ten years ,maybe this will be 750$
the businesses that may want to accept bitcoins have to check the legal status first , in many countries crypto is in the grey area
for many it is not worth the trouble and bitcoin remains excluded from our day to day activities like shopping ,  Friday night parties  ;D etc.  

I spend rather more than I should. If that spending was taxable in the way it seems in the US I would likely stop doing it. Sounds like a right grind.

if you do everything by the book, it's a nightmare. but what percentage of crypto investors do you think actually report gains after every purchase? probably a low single digit percentage. after all, there is zero tax reporting on the merchant side or KYC when buying goods/services.

i'm hoping one of these bills (https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2144/text?format=txt) gets passed which exempts a certain amount of gains realized by spending. that'll give us a bit of additional cover......

Dunno. But I wouldn't want to be planting future pain for myself. Maybe one day they'll get super hot software that effortlessly tracks every purchase ever made and go to town. The merchant addresses will be known and many of the personal addresses will be linked to IDs as well.

And congrats on your legendariness. It's exceedingly well deserved.

I don't buy this oft-repeated explanation. Who knows where the price and Bitcoin will be within a year, let alone ten years? Maybe if the price has dipped recently and someone's making a bigger purchase, otherwise 0.01 BTC is too little to worry about losing on a potential "10-1000" increase decade down the line. And I know Bitcoin has already increased 10000 between 2011 and 2017, but even now anything more than a 10x increase looks kind of ridiculous. It's not going to be increasing like it already did forever.

It's definitely the case for me and I'm sure it's the same for others who've been around.

I'm well aware of the piece of tat I'm buying now coming back to haunt me at a much higher price. I only buy stuff with BTC that I know will enrich my life for the foreseeable future no matter what the price will do.

I've got piece of shit laptop sleeves that broke the moment I tried to zip them up that now cost the equivalent of £250. Not doing that again. Even buying and replacing would still sting.

It's these nincompoops who wrote in 2015 about spending everything they had on their Steam library who must wander the streets punching themselves in the head and muttering to themselves. I warned 'em at the time.

Then don't spend everything :-X

Stupid PCIe risers I bought back in 2011 would be worth more than my home if I could exchange them back to Bitcoin but I'm not going to complain - at the time it was a good investment.

well , I often catch myself doing this and I'm sure others do as well
it is human psychology , there is no escaping it and bitcoin is too volatile to be spending it without thinking
we don't know where the price will be come next year , it is true but we secretly HOPE that our decisions ( to buy in this case) are correct and are reluctant to spend bitcoins
one more thing I forgot to mention , the tiny purchases like a cup of coffee I've mentioned -
add your transaction fees and the price goes up , while it is pretty negligible on the purchases > 10$ , but paying 2-3 bucks and then get "taxed" for 0.25$ by a tx fee , not too exciting 

The funny thing however is that the people expecting it to x100-x1000 lose everything anyway because of poor investment decisions. People are so greedy that they do not only want to see the price go up a lot, but also see their satoshi stack go up a lot, and they hope to do that by investing in all sorts of shitcoins.

By spending you at least have the item that you purchased. Most of the get rich quick noobs have nothing left but bad memories because most shitcoins lost ~90% of their value.

Most Bitcoin enthusiasts restock their satoshi stack after having spent some. I do that too. Works well.

T.H.I.S.

If you really want Bitcoin to succeed, do exactly what 1Referee is saying: spend BTC on your regular weekly stuff, then spend your fiat buying back the BTC you spent. Currencies change hands. Money circulates.

Buy a car and a helicopter:
https://delouvois.com/browse/all_categories/1995-eurocopter-as350b2/
A bit of gold and platinum:
https://www.jmbullion.com/
House by the ocean or own island:
https://bitcoin-realestate.com/property/3123-2/
https://bitcoin-realestate.com/property/160-acre-tropical-island/
Buy a good yacht:
https://cryptobankandtrust.co.uk/index.php/yachts-for-sale/
Now pay taxes:
https://refundo.com/
 8)

Where I'm at there's no capital gains tax and bitcoins aren't taxed at all, but don't spend because I treat my Bitcoins like that coin jar from the picture. My Bitcoin wallet is my piggy bank. To be honest if there was a capital gains tax in my country I'd keep my coins hidden and that would be extremely easy because I bought them on defunct exchanges with no KYC somewhere in 2014 and 15. If I wanted to sell at some point I'd move to a tax haven. This means that I don't spend because I don't want to, not because of taxes.