Bitcoin anonymity broken. You have to pay tax

[freightjoe]

The IRS has broken Bitcoin anonymity.

Apart from the obvious impact on criminals, this also means that all Bitcoin investors will be forced to pay taxes of their earnings. And be fined for past Bitcoin earnings they have not reported.

https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/08/28/bitcoin-loses-anonymity-irs-tracks-bitcoiners-new-blockchain-analysis-tools/

[EXtremeAEX]

I know right, this is so annoying. Paying tax in whatever way possible, trying to get our money. Looking from IRS's perspective though, it is only fair to implement this tax, especially to rich investors who can abuse Bitcoin if without tax to evade it, which harms the country. I do agree that this breaks anonymity, which defeats the purpose, unless you go full anonymous and spend things online without a trace, and don't withdraw it.

[freightjoe]

I know right, this is so annoying. Paying tax in whatever way possible, trying to get our money. Looking from IRS's perspective though, it is only fair to implement this tax, especially to rich investors who can abuse Bitcoin if without tax to evade it, which harms the country. I do agree that this breaks anonymity, which defeats the purpose, unless you go full anonymous and spend things online without a trace, and don't withdraw it.

Please tell how rich investors can abuse Bitcoin?

[magle]

As long as you stay clear from any exchange that would operate in a country that like to play with the US, then you can still not be identified. But ofcause we know the best exchanges all do the KYC. So they can trance your transactions.

However is it not only fair that you pay your taxes like all other citizens.

[iamTom123]

I know right, this is so annoying. Paying tax in whatever way possible, trying to get our money. Looking from IRS's perspective though, it is only fair to implement this tax, especially to rich investors who can abuse Bitcoin if without tax to evade it, which harms the country. I do agree that this breaks anonymity, which defeats the purpose, unless you go full anonymous and spend things online without a trace, and don't withdraw it.

Well, as long as we are doing business in this world and we are still under the overarching power of the government, we have no choice but to pay taxes as computed by those in the authority. However, this is not peculiar to Bitcoin as all of us have to pay our taxes whether we like or not. I am just particularly disturbed how the IRS is using a tracking technology for them to determine if a person is declaring his/her Bitcoin transactions and possible gains subject to tax. We should really realize that the government can get so creative in doing their job as mandated by the constitution of the country...should we then do anything possible (as long as legal) to pay the least amount of tax?

[European Central Bank]

i've never seen bitcoin billed as tax free. it's never been billed as anonymous.

it's quite obvious to anyone that tax is due depending on where you live just as it is for almost everything else on this planet.

your concern trolling really needs upping a notch beyond the painfully obvious.

 

[frowsiter]

Isn’t that is good news actually. Because see man if the people keep investing into bitcoin and they never return the money into bank accounts then that would be chaos for the national development. I mean how you will explain the thing that bitcoin investment is helping in the national economy development or what if you don’t see any good roads, any good services of government and then blame it agin for the same purpose. But this all could be changed if the bitcoin is taxed. Because know very important thing that most of the investment now a days is going into bitcoin which is from couple of thousands to millions of dollars and it must be tracked because we are loosing the treasury funds really. So hope that we will together to help build better bitcoin. The anonymity is juts imaginary, your each move still can be tracked with logic. ;-)

[ashfer]

It is a normal thing for a person to get taxed for the amount which comes to their bank account as per the rules and regulations of the particular country so i don't think that this is a big issue to get taxed for the cash in their account and as everyone know that btc is a public ledger and everything is done as public and not as private so its not a big deal and as far as we stay clean from our side its not an issue .Tax is there on what ever we do as the government and the nation is being run by the support of tax as it is one of the main source of income for the nation.

[meer45]

I'm sure nobody was expecting to make tax free money forever. This is actually not that bad in my opinion, means IRS is recognizing bitcoin and the money you make off of it as legitimate income.

[strocifer]

Now you have to flee to tax free heaven.
Panama papers, here we go again

[Kprawn]

Bitcoin were never created to circumvent paying taxes. If you want full anonymity, you should rather use another Alt coin. Governments will ban

Bitcoin, if people use it as a tool to avoid paying taxes. In my country, Bitcoin is taxed under "Capital Gains"..... so I just pay the damn governments

their share and avoid going to jail.   .....DO NOT mess with tax owed to your government.... they will throw you in jail.  

[soham]

I welcome that move by IRS. I will welcome if my country takes the similar step. Taxing on bitcoin earning means, it is taking another step forward towards main stream inclusion. I am sure a lot of people wouldn't mind paying taxes on their bitcoin earning because it will save them from many legal hassles in future. Also it will help curbing crime and terrorism funding.

I have been earning bitcoin since a long time now. I have already reported my bitcoin earning to my tax information form under the head "Income from other sources". Here earning means the amounts I have cashed out to my bank account and not the entire bitcoin holding. I keep track on whatever I cashout through out the year and report the amount to the tax information sheet. So this bitcoin income counts as a legal earning and not black money.  

[jman0war]

The IRS has broken Bitcoin anonymity.

Apart from the obvious impact on criminals, this also means that all Bitcoin investors will be forced to pay taxes of their earnings. And be fined for past Bitcoin earnings they have not reported.

https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/08/28/bitcoin-loses-anonymity-irs-tracks-bitcoiners-new-blockchain-analysis-tools/

This isn't particularly new information, other than the IRS have formally contracted with ChainAnalysis.
THe IRS have not 'broken' anything.
They make it sound as if they've hacked Bitcoin, it's click bait.

The FBI were busting people using SilkRoad back in 2014 and tracked drug dealers via bitcoin transaction history.

Of course if you use an Exchange you give up identifying information to them.

Your public key/address is visible and the blockchain is public information.
If you are looking for greater anonymity then you need to employ additional techniques.

[xdrpx]

I wouldn't mind paying taxes on the capital gains made from Bitcoin. But, it's kind of apparent that the Federal banks and Central banks would soon get their hands on chainanalysis tools. Also I believe if we continue to retain our Bitcoins without selling them for our national fiat, then probably capital gains wouldn't be a problem. The only thing now is, I hope regulation happens soon and that Bitcoin isn't banned for exchange or for use as a medium of payment.

Also, the fundamental way of identifying the transactions to the user is because of some form of identification or private information attached with it either at the time of buying Bitcoins (by linking your Tax ID) and probably your bank information. I'm guessing this would be hard to avoid in the future, when exchanges like localbitcoins might become an illegal way of exchanging without ID?

[Anochensio]

Yes but in my country you always had to pay tax for bitcoins i believe that is how it worked around my country because we pay tax for almost everything but the government uses the money well to make new roads and buildings so it is fine.

[ZainSpider]

That's one of the most shocking news of 2017.

[tomahawk9]

The IRS has broken Bitcoin anonymity.

Apart from the obvious impact on criminals, this also means that all Bitcoin investors will be forced to pay taxes of their earnings. And be fined for past Bitcoin earnings they have not reported.

https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/08/28/bitcoin-loses-anonymity-irs-tracks-bitcoiners-new-blockchain-analysis-tools/

Clickbait. From the article:

Via Bitcoin.com: According to a contract recently obtained by the Daily Beast, the IRS can now track bitcoin and other cryptocurrency addresses.

So, this is coming from the website (bitcoin d o t com) owned by Roger Ver (CEO of BCH). Yeah, this is most likely the next stage of FUD about Bitcoin coming from owners of the altcoin BCH, 'Roger & Co' . I wonder how much did they have pay to the "technocracy.news" team and the "shtfplan.com" team to put out those articles?.

But I highly doubt the IRS has broken btc anonymity, I think they'd rather spend all their resource to put some kind of regulations on Bitcoin, and it's going to happen soon or later, but to try to get rid of btc anonymity? I don't think so. If they did do it, then the darknet markets wouldn't exist.

[Bitmora]

Coming from the stock market, I don't necessarily mind paying my fair share in taxes. Nobody likes paying them, but it also keeps the country moving in a somewhat straight direction.

[Lieldoryn]

I can't understand what's the problem? If they track bitcoin transactions it is not a reason for user charges in tax evasion. If the user exchanges the bitcoins for Fiat you don't need to keep track of bitcoin transactions. Banks provide information to tax authorities and they do not need to search for users. If it is possible to buy goods without exchange for Fiat we are now out of reach for them.

[NUFCrichard]

Coming from the stock market, I don't necessarily mind paying my fair share in taxes. Nobody likes paying them, but it also keeps the country moving in a somewhat straight direction.

That’s an unpopular but very true statement. When it is someone else’s money, we all want everyone to pay their taxes, but when we make money suddenly it seems unfair!

That said, I bought my bitcoin in 2013/14 and live in Germany, so my profits will be tax free :-)