Will Bitcoin send the IRS to the moon?

[Sir Alpha_goy]

Will the IRS hijack the Bitcoin moon rocket?

Seems so.

They are a very powerful and respectable agency.

What say you?

[Kprawn]

The IRS has a job to do, and we have to accept the fact that there are two things that you would never avoid.. Death & Taxes. If you are a

good citizen, you will pay your damn taxes and go on with your life. If you decide to use Bitcoin to avoid taxes, then you deserve to look over

your shoulder every day, because they will hunt you down... to take their cut. I would rather pay the damn taxes and not have to worry, when

they are going to burst through the door to arrest me for tax evasion. 

[franky1]

The IRS has a job to do, and we have to accept the fact that there are two things that you would never avoid.. Death & Taxes. If you are a

good citizen, you will pay your damn taxes and go on with your life. If you decide to use Bitcoin to avoid taxes, then you deserve to look over

your shoulder every day, because they will hunt you down... to take their cut. I would rather pay the damn taxes and not have to worry, when

they are going to burst through the door to arrest me for tax evasion.  

just having bitcoin is not taxable.
same as holding shares/stocks/assets/'personal trusts'.

whats important is when you CASH OUT(sell asset/shares/bitcoin). you have to declare the FIAT YOU are then holding.

the IRS only care about who WITHDREW FIAT from coinbase (if this topic is about IRS V COINBASE) plus its only about the AMERICAN users (meaning DOLLAR withdrawals)

its not about bitcoin holders or bitcoin holders outside the U.S

[ArcCsch]

If you start spending lots of bitcoin on goods and services without paying taxes, the IRS would catch you for having a standard of living inconsistent with your income.
It is the same as using cash to evade taxes.
Eventually, IRS will have to move to bitcoin.

[Dahhi]

If IRS decides to chase crypto tax evaders, it will be a losing battle because those people would simply move over to monero, zcash and other anonymous coins.
What can IRS do about that?

[calkob]

Will the IRS hijack the Bitcoin moon rocket?

Seems so.

They are a very powerful and respectable agency.

What say you?

Dont see how they can hijack the bitcoin moon train, especially with technologies that are going to appear over the next years that will allow users to completely hide their transactions and holdings,  the IRS have not got a chance.  A new way of working and funding governments is going to have to be found over the next 30 years.

[coolcoinz]

The IRS just one of many similar institutions around the world. I wonder how the rest of the world will react. Fight it like drugs and ignore the money flow, or tax it like gambling and alcohol.

[franky1]

If IRS decides to chase crypto tax evaders, it will be a losing battle because those people would simply move over to monero, zcash and other anonymous coins.
What can IRS do about that?

its not a bitcoin sepecific thing.
same rule applies to any crypto/stock/share/asset/ or even foriegn fiat currency... if you convert it to a fiat that the IRS rules over. expect them to stalk you for it.

also as someone else said

If you start spending lots of bitcoin on goods and services without paying taxes, the IRS would catch you for having a standard of living inconsistent with your income.
It is the same as using cash to evade taxes.
Eventually, IRS will have to move to bitcoin.

yep if they cannot find you via bank records a jealous neighbour will "grass you in" for having a better car then them, but never see you go to work to afford it.

the trick is then to have receipts that the car is leased (NOT OWNED in your name to be towed). paid for from contributions of a foundation (corporate trust fund: again not with your name attached 'personally')

[Yakamoto]

The IRS has a hard-on for getting their share of whatever it is you make, be it a lot, a little, a painfully small amount,  or anything else similar to that. They will always want their share of your wealth, and this extends further into Bitcoin.

If anything I'm surprised that the IRS wasn't getting involved sooner, however this is something I expected since we hit the $1,000 mark, and even closer to just $100 to be honest.

I'm surprised that the value isn't going down, seems like people are confident in their ability to hide their wealth, or someone is buying a lot for some reason.

[franky1]

The IRS has a hard-on for getting their share of whatever it is you make, be it a lot, a little, a painfully small amount,  or anything else similar to that. They will always want their share of your wealth, and this extends further into Bitcoin.

If anything I'm surprised that the IRS wasn't getting involved sooner, however this is something I expected since we hit the $1,000 mark, and even closer to just $100 to be honest.

I'm surprised that the value isn't going down, seems like people are confident in their ability to hide their wealth, or someone is buying a lot for some reason.

nah..
most dont care.
a majority of people are only buying $10-$1000 bitcoin.. due to the registration requirements of coinbased hardly any are actually spending more than $10k in coinbase. so its not like every customer is going to get an IRS letter.. maybe just 1% of coinbase customers who have not bought bitcoin more professionally when spending more than $10k.

the real smart guys loop their funds through off shore accounts/foundations and corporations before doing anything. so the end result wont be a mass exodus of customers. because as i just explained hardly any are actually using coinbase for such amounts IRS cares for

[franky1]

This is possible but lets face it you don't know that.

You don't know if they will go after everyone.
Coinbase's account history logs aren't a paper notebook and some chicken scratch.
It is meticulous and well put together.
The IRS will not have a hard time sifting through the good practices that Coinbase is currently using.
The IRS handles the entire US population's tax filings.
You really think the Bitcoin community is gonna add that much work for them?
You think they are only going after big fish when I say they are out to make a point.
With the dollar going up and the IRS filing the claim to get Coinbase's records I would say the message is clear.
There is a new sheriff in town and he is not going to put up with any dissent in this country at all.

Regime change is upon us.

lol you do know that even in fiat. many people avoid taxes already. using trusts, offshore etc.
also the 'average/majority' user of coinbase is not the $10k plus user. so although it wont take them long to find the $10k+ users. its not going to be a significant amount of coinbase customers.

only expect a couple % of users to react to this IRS news as personally impacting them.

IRS is not a new sheriff. its the same sheriff it always has been.
its just drama in the end.

those that do use coinbase over $10k will get a letter through the post. whoop-de-doo. and if smart enough they can explain themselves out of how much tax they owe.

in short the IRS is just going to continue on as it has done.. these subpoena's are not some big event. to them its just everyday paperwork. much like writing out a daily memo..
nothing when you look at the big picture has changed

[leopard2]

Will the IRS hijack the Bitcoin moon rocket?

Seems so.

They are a very powerful and respectable agency.

What say you?

RESPECTABLE?

You work for them?!

Independent from BTC, how can you call an organization that extorts money from people, by threatening them with violence, RESPECTABLE?

A drug dealer is more respectable because he offers his customers a choice.  Nobody goes to jail for not buying drugs.

It is typical for government work: Satoshi and many developers worked hard to create something brilliant that did not exist before and makes life better for everyone. Government? Sends goons, threatens everyone, to get a large share of the value that they did not create.  Not smart enough to create, just smart enough to persecute and use force and steal, that is what robbers do.

[Shiroslullaby]

I wish we had some information on the amount of people the IRS has working on the Coinbase case.
I doubt they could go after smaller accounts, they are probably only targeting the "big fish" on the site.
Seems like it would take too much time and money to go after every person who made a few hundred dollars on the site.

[aso118]

I wish we had some information on the amount of people the IRS has working on the Coinbase case.
I doubt they could go after smaller accounts, they are probably only targeting the "big fish" on the site.
Seems like it would take too much time and money to go after every person who made a few hundred dollars on the site.

Even if the IRS goes only after the big fish, it is the threat which could get people to declare profit from bitcoins. You punish a few and the rest automatically fall in line.

[olubams]

Will the IRS hijack the Bitcoin moon rocket?

Seems so.

They are a very powerful and respectable agency.

What say you?

No it wont send IRS to the moon. IRS is a machinery of government created for specific purpose and they strive to achieve this by the laws created to make them function properly and if that is no longer possible government will make another law to cover that, or ban everything all together. With that IRS will become more effective and still be respectable. What we are still seeing is because the volume is not yet enough to attract government concerns...

[DimensionZ]

Well the simplest way to avoid taxes on your Bitcoins when selling for fiat on a regulated exchange is to go the Localbitcoins way, no? And people could always launder a small portion of their coins in order to stay under the radar. Any revenue agency in the world would only go after the really big spenders and wouldn't waste time investigating into the affairs of small-time Bitcoin users.

[BitcoinHodler]

to me the stupid thing about topics like this is that people are already paying taxes to IRS or their country tax agency for everything else they do, they pay it when they trade, when they invest, they buy stuff or generally when they live and breathe air! so why is it always a big deal when it comes to paying taxes when "trading bitcoin"

[IIOII]

to me the stupid thing about topics like this is that people are already paying taxes to IRS or their country tax agency for everything else they do, they pay it when they trade, when they invest, they buy stuff or generally when they live and breathe air! so why is it always a big deal when it comes to paying taxes when "trading bitcoin"

Hence the IRS wanting Coinbase's user account records.

They know Bitcoin traders are not paying taxes or they wouldn't be wasting their time.

The IRS is just looking for new sources of income. It's their job to suspect anyone not paying enough taxes. However, buying Bitcoin and transferring them to another Bitcoin wallet is not a taxable event. Only a portion of Coinbase users will be affected by the IRS request.

And luckily, Coinbase isn't the only Bitcoin exchange. There are many others. Not mentioning the increasing number of P2P trades. So the IRS action will hardly be problematic for Bitcoin as a whole. Instead it will convince Bitcoin users to move away from Coinbase and other exchanges with a history of user surveillance.

Selling Bitcoin for Dollars is dumb anyway. Bitcoin is the better currency and a superior store of value.

[BitcoinHodler]

to me the stupid thing about topics like this is that people are already paying taxes to IRS or their country tax agency for everything else they do, they pay it when they trade, when they invest, they buy stuff or generally when they live and breathe air! so why is it always a big deal when it comes to paying taxes when "trading bitcoin"

Hence the IRS wanting Coinbase's user account records.
They know Bitcoin traders are not paying taxes or they wouldn't be wasting their time.

Coinbase is based in US (San Francisco, California) only a fool thinks a big place with more than 3 million users and 5+K USD daily volume has not yet given information to IRS

it has only became public recently.

and by the way this has nothing to do with what i said about paying taxes on everything else except bitcoin!

[Kprawn]

The IRS has a job to do, and we have to accept the fact that there are two things that you would never avoid.. Death & Taxes. If you are a

good citizen, you will pay your damn taxes and go on with your life. If you decide to use Bitcoin to avoid taxes, then you deserve to look over

your shoulder every day, because they will hunt you down... to take their cut. I would rather pay the damn taxes and not have to worry, when

they are going to burst through the door to arrest me for tax evasion. 

Very well put.

So I will put you in the "approving the IRS usurping BTC and it's long overdue moon shot" category.

Gotta pay to play right!

Render to Caesar what is Caesar's.

Be honest for a moment... Do you really think any government will allow their citizens to use a technology/currency/commodity without

having to pay any taxes? They need that money to pay their salaries and to fund wars that we do not want. A small percentage of that money

goes towards essential services we do need. So yes, I do not approve of their methods, but I can see why they are doing it.