US Regulation

[Carlor]

er

[b!z]

You don't have to pay taxes if you buy something with Bitcoin. You only have to pay a tiny transaction fee.

[EndOfTheLine]

Meh. The bitcoin foundation doesn't actually wield any power, so there is little to fear from them.

[Wipeout2097]

If bitcoin becomes centralized, there are alt-coins and there will be even better decentralized projects.  You can't "un-invent" stuff.

Regarding the US, the attack on Bitcoin is for the same reason the Euro was attacked 3 years ago, and for the same that Iraq was invaded: the petro-dollar

[Gator-hex]

You do have to pay taxes no matter what currency you use. USA even taxes barter trades!

Bitcoin was always going to be centralized, the people who read the white paper knew that from the get go!

The reason it will be centralized is that a peer-2-peer network will flood the Internet with transaction traffic as it gets more popular, and the huge database of transactions will get too big for a home user to hold.

It's an exponential math problem inherent to all p2p networks http://youtu.be/9SOSfRNCQZQ?t=4m30s

If you want a decentralized coin use LiteCoin, it was designed to keep production on PCs, which helps keep it decentralized. Bitcoin started getting centralized the day we started using FPGAs and ASICs.

The regulated and government accepted crypto currency will always be worth more though, plus you will have the legal support of the police/courts for Bitcoin thefts, so it's not all bad news.

[jjtech]

You rise some very interesting points.....

Why would you change an almost perfect working, decentralised system like bitcoin to a centralised system?

answers are in the questions my friend. Bitcoin has to be tampered with because it works very well

Why can't you say it like it is: Bitcoin is free and you either accept it or you don't.

Because money is created out of debt - it's most blatant and open in the US. Technically there is a cost of manufacturing the money, held by govt, controlled by a bank. In the US it's a conglomerate of private banks known as FED. So they can't afford to lose control over the tool that brings them money. Why

Why this "anticipatory obedience"?

Because people are conditioned/trained to think this way. The best way to understand dynamics in current economics is using organized crime model. You can't just open competitive brothel right in front of the mafia boss nose. He'll come with guns and take you away. The only chance to beat is to create numbers large enough for the outfit to crack down on easily.
You rise some very important points here....

Why is everybody talking about bitcoins being "tax haven"? I don't know how it is at your place but here we don't have to pay taxes for just having money.

I do think that you actually pay for just having money - it's the cost of money creation. But I know better the way it works in the US where it's most blatant (FED). Even if there isn't much more added than EUR is bootstrapped to the dollar anyway and one way or another you will pay for it (to the bank owners of course). You can possibly add to it obligations your country has to other countries (read: banks) within the EU (like Greece) etc.

We have to pay taxes if we buy stuff and so on and I don't see where this is going to change with bitcoins.

This variable won't change

This is the chance for China to challenge the US and if there is any rational thinking in the CP they will push cryptocurrencies.

I would hope so mate. This and gold - but I might be naive

[Carlor]

You don't have to pay taxes if you buy something with Bitcoin. You only have to pay a tiny transaction fee.

Ehm no. I can buy pizza here and I definitely have to pay value added tax.
Further on, the pizza delivery company has to pay business tax, which is included in the price for the pizza.
If my employer decided to pay me in bitcoins, I still had to pay income tax.
An if I bought something from a private sale I don't have to pay taxes, neither with bitcoins nor with fiat.

[bee7]

Because your government seems to get more and more like the soviet union?

I love this very much (I am from Russia) I never thought that some day someone would compare US government with the Soviet Union's one.

As to centralization and taxation. Do we pay taxes when we get some tips in cash for occasional services? Yes, we must, but do we? In many countries the tips a waiter gets has to be counted and declared as income, so get taxed. And they do. Nobody knows how much of the total they declare. The question with taxes is a question of your attitude to your state of residence. If you believe that your money are spent properly - you pay taxes (according to your view of reasonability). If you don't like how the government spends your money you are trying to change it by voting. I was told it is called democracy

Centralization to some extent is not avoidable as with growth of difficulty the profitable mining is possible only with specialized hardware. At some moment the network maintenance will become possible only if donated like the maintenance of the printed fiat. But in case of bitcoin the centralization will not be held  by a single state, I think and hope.

[dudebit]

Taxes:
It is not so much taxes on bitcoin as taxes on the profits. The ever hungry beast wants bitcoin regulated so that if you sell bitcoins for twice what you paid for them, they have a record and can make sure you pay taxes on the profit (unless your a 1%er with an offshore account).

[Carlor]

Because your government seems to get more and more like the soviet union?

I love this very much (I am from Russia) I never thought that some day someone would compare US government with the Soviet Union's one.

...

I could have taken the GDR as example as well

As I just had two years of Russian in school a long time ago and can barely read Cyrillic letters and say "How are you?" I was wondering, if bitcoins are discussed in the media in Russia?
Russia Today, which is according to wikipedia controlled by the Kreml, seems to be very supportive of bitcoins.
Are there any plans for regulation, is bitcoin even slightly covered by the media?
I would appreciate any information

Best regards to Russia!

Taxes:
It is not so much taxes on bitcoin as taxes on the profits. The ever hungry beast wants bitcoin regulated so that if you sell bitcoins for twice what you paid for them, they have a record and can make sure you pay taxes on the profit (unless your a 1%er with an offshore account).

Here we don't have to pay taxes on speculation profits, if we either didn't had the bitcoins for more then a year or didn't make more than 600 € (ore something around this..) profit a year.
And this is imho working without problem.

[MicroGuy]

I hope you understand my english and I would be glad if someone could enlighten me about the bullshit going on in the US

Wow.  

This is a great post and very thought provoking indeed and your English is perfectly understandable.

Bitcoin would have been fine if the whole red listing fork weren't around the corner. As long as a coin's developers don't roll over to regulation then the only thing that can be regulated is on the merchant side of the equation.

What I think we'll see in the future is a number of different approaches emerging from the altcoin sector. Those that stay true to Satoshi's original ideals and others like the current Bitcoin that submit to oppressive forces.



I think an equilibrium will eventually be reached with a coin(s) that can 1.) be accepted by regulated merchants but 2.) also used by independent freedom fighters who can independently trade unregulated among each other. Much like cash is used today.

Some of this ability appears be vanishing for the new Bitcoin.

[dudebit]

As to your Tax Haven question, I believe it has to do with the fact that bitcoin is somewhat anonymous. So if there was a company/person who sells overseas $1,000,000 in products/services a year and they  have an annual profit of $250,000, they (if they are the ruling elite) can currently sell their products at cost to their offshore company and then the offshore company sells the product at full price. The offshore company now has the profits and since it happened to be set up in a country that does not tax that profit, they don't have to pay taxes. Bitcoin creates a world where the average guy could sell 25% of his products in bitcoin and there is no paper trail that the IRS can use to confirm that he made those sales and so he has the sinister option of choosing not to report that income with a reasonable level of confidence that the IRS will not find out. This is what they want to regulate. They want a paper trail so he is compelled to pay. The elites need to reserve tax avoidance schemes for only themselves since someone needs to pay for their omnipotent state - and they sure as hell don't want to pay for that beast...

[bee7]

I could have taken the GDR as example as well

As I just had two years of Russian in school a long time ago and can barely read Cyrillic letters and say "How are you?" I was wondering, if bitcoins are discussed in the media in Russia?
Russia Today, which is according to wikipedia controlled by the Kreml, seems to be very supportive of bitcoins.
Are there any plans for regulation, is bitcoin even slightly covered by the media?
I would appreciate any information

Best regards to Russia!

Well, unfortunately, I am not the one who you should ask as I didn't watch TV and read papers for past 4 months (I am building a house in the summer (warm) time and I have no TV here)

Yes, of course, there are news and articles appears in the media time to time. But I believe the officials are not really as serious to bitcoin as in the US. To the moment we have no legislation that may be used to control bitcoins anyhow AFAIK. Some people with (and without) lawer's education in the related Russian threads are saying that according to the laws we have the bitcoin is not money. Also they are even find it difficult to classify bitcoin as a commodity.

[Carlor]

As to your Tax Haven question, I believe it has to do with the fact that bitcoin is somewhat anonymous. So if
...

Ok, I can understand, that bitcoin would make it easier for small companies. But I also have the option of doing that with hard cash already.
And if I bought me a Lamborghini tomorrow I would have tax inspectors everywhere And it wouldn't matter if I made my profit with bitcoins ore hard cash..