What if authorities launch a tax for owning bitcoin?

[macson]

snip

I have purchased my first BTC on a regulated exchange with KYC. I don't prefer it because of privacy reasons, but I had no other choice at the time. From there it will go to my coldstorage device, which I consider reporting as stolen if a ownership tax is launched. However, authorities would know the BTC address (exchange will provide it) and every future transaction that came from it. So I could never move the funds after reporting it as stolen (I guess) as this demonstrates they were not stolen.

Can I transfer the BTC from my current address, to an address that no government can ever link to me?

there are still several mixer platforms operating so you can disguise your tracks from the government through them, that's also what makes me not really like what the government is doing with bitcoin, they just want to get tax money but don't want to be responsible when someone loses bitcoin from their wallet.  The government has never found the best solution to deal with the difficulties faced by society, all they know is how to get more tax money quickly, while Bitcoin is here to be the best solution for the general public and to be a good and trusted investment asset, if more and more people lose their trust in the government then it is not the citizens' fault but it is all purely because the current government cannot be trusted by the citizens.

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[Ale88]

If you keep on using P2P services in order to buy or sell the coins, then you will be saved from these additional taxes if the government of your nation imposes it.

And if Bitcoin goes to the moon, you won't be able to use it to buy anything big. That's the risk of not paying taxes, you'll end up with black money.

If you really have a lot of bitcoins and one day you want to cash out without paying any taxes, or in case you never declared anything, in my opinion the best option is to simply leave your country and move somewhere else. It doesn't have to be a permanent move of course, but if you live abroad during the cashout you should be fine. Of course I'm implying that you can demonstrate the origin of those bitcoins and that you never actually evaded taxes, so let's say that you just never declared the possession of those bitcoins. All this is not valid for US citizens since they get taxed also overseas.

[icalical]

I think it's too difficult (but not impossible) to apply tax for owning Bitcoin due to the pseudonymous system of Bitcoin ownership, people can just store their Bitcoin on a wallet that are unknown to government. However Bitcoin transaction can easily be taxed on the Centralized Exchange, and that's is already implemented in my country, every crypto transaction, both crypt-crypto or crypto-fiat is taxed as much as 0.11% of the amount transacted, this is regulated by law. So, all exchange must follow.

[aoluain]

I think most countries in Europe anyway have a proactive attitude to bitcoin and in my european
country the government treat Bitcoin as an asset, the same as any other investment.

It means we are free to buy it and HODL it but when we want to sell it for FIAT the "Profit"
is liable for TAX @ 33%, they are quite happy to take their TAX at the "exit" point.

[Casdinyard]

I say one way or another this will work in bitcoin's favor. Cause between outright banning of the cryptocurrency king in your country and getting it taxed/regulated, the latter will always be the better option for current and prospective crypto users.

Imagine how much crypto would be widespread if it has traction in the Republic of China, with its billions of citizens and hundreds of millions of people who was displaced after the ban on mining and cryptocurrency users. Honestly speaking having bitcoin be taxed by the government isn't even a bad thing in the first place, yeah there's the fact that it's going to be grafted and corrupted but in paper the money that you'd give to the government from the transactions and transfers you make in your crypto journey is able to go towards the betterment of your country. Imagine El Salvador being able to not only really use bitcoin as a substitute cryptocurrency but also earn taxation benefits that could help boost its economy from the crypto taxations alone, I think if that would be the case the country's citizens wouldn't be so mad about the abrupt change they brought in back in 2021.

I'm probably just spitballing here but there's a great discussion to be had when talking about cryptocurrency and regulation. Personally I don't think the decentralized aspect of bitcoin wouldn't be so defiled and violated even if it were to be regulated by countries.

[Ale88]

I think most countries in Europe anyway have a proactive attitude to bitcoin and in my european
country the government treat Bitcoin as an asset, the same as any other investment.

It means we are free to buy it and HODL it but when we want to sell it for FIAT the "Profit"
is liable for TAX @ 33%, they are quite happy to take their TAX at the "exit" point.

In Europe I would say that only the EBC is openly against bitcoin, and it's pretty easy to guess why. The actual countries know that it's pointless to go against bitcoin at this point, especially it would simply mean that some other country will take advantage of the eventual ban. Switzerland for example, a country that knows how to attract foreign money, has always been very open, especially in Zug.

By the way, where do you live? 33% capital gain tax is quite a lot!

[blckhawk]

That would be a scary thought but how would they know how to target the people that are hodling or as you say owning a bitcoin? Because I can't understand how they'll be able to do that when there's a pseudonymous feature that bitcoin offers and we can all just put all of our bitcoins back to a non-custodial wallet so as to prevent the potential subpoena to get the data from the exchanges which is unlikely especially with international exchanges. The thing that's going to happen though is that people are definitely going to stop talking about bitcoin or crypto openly so as not raise any suspicions that they own bitcoin but I think that the ones that would hide are those that have a really small amount of bitcoin, those that have a lot of bitcoin wouldn't probably mind paying.

[AmoreJaz]

That would be a scary thought but how would they know how to target the people that are hodling or as you say owning a bitcoin? Because I can't understand how they'll be able to do that when there's a pseudonymous feature that bitcoin offers and we can all just put all of our bitcoins back to a non-custodial wallet so as to prevent the potential subpoena to get the data from the exchanges which is unlikely especially with international exchanges. The thing that's going to happen though is that people are definitely going to stop talking about bitcoin or crypto openly so as not raise any suspicions that they own bitcoin but I think that the ones that would hide are those that have a really small amount of bitcoin, those that have a lot of bitcoin wouldn't probably mind paying.

this will only be possible to third party platforms registered to operate a business and are governed by the laws and regulations of their respective government. that is, if the user will use their services. otherwise, if they are using their own wallets, the government would not know the true holdings of each user. do you really think users will voluntarily submit to the government and disclose their crypto assets? they may give some numbers but i don't think they will give the actual assets that they have especially that they can be discreet with their crypto holdings.

[Learn Bitcoin]

If I'd receive large amounts of money from the Middle East, I'll get a whole bunch of other questions and it's going to be a lot more difficult to explain the origin of the funds.

Maybe it would be a problem for you. But it's common in my country. A lot of people work in the Middle East and the banks here do not bother too much if they see the money comes from the Middle East. Most of the expatriate people live in the Middle East and a large number of foreign money comes from the Middle East. Even the banks pay an extra % to encourage people to send money via banks and to discourage illegal transactions.

In Portugal it is similar, the tax on investment profits (Bitcoin is classified as an investment asset, similar to investing in the stock market), you pay 28% tax.

This is fucking joke, to be honest. I cannot imagine paying more than 15% tax on my own hard-earned money. This is the reason people do illegal transactions. 28% tax is too much.

[LoyceV]

I cannot imagine paying more than 15% tax on my own hard-earned money. This is the reason people do illegal transactions. 28% tax is too much.

I wish I could only pay 28% tax!

[goldkingcoiner]

It's just YouTube, but today I ran across a video that mentioned a bitcoin HODL tax.

In order to stop bitcoin, authorities would have to shut down the internet which is impossible. So I predict that their next move is to launch enormous taxes to discourage people from owning bitcoin, and prevent mass adoption as competition for their corrupted CBDC's that still have to be launched. The purpose of their regulations is to take over the entire bitcoin market, of course. They will make you sell, either by launching huge taxes for ownership or by treating the owner of 1 BTC like a drug dealer (prison sentence).

So we need a gameplan against this.

~snip

Can I transfer the BTC from my current address, to an address that no government can ever link to me?

The Government is not about to start making up new laws just to tax Bitcoin. I wish they did. That would really piss people off and finally motivate the community to raise the pressure on the next gen development of the Bitcoin market. I imagine that will lead to a more anonymized and decentralized market. I would love to see new BTC adoptees being welcomed by the community and freeing themselves of fiat slavery (Especially talking about freeing their minds of the psychological bonds that come with growing up with a centralized money system).

But Fiat is way more anonymous than Bitcoin (which was never designed to be anonymous). Although BTC can be made anonymous (but we are not allowed to talk about the M word anymore. Because it does not exist ).


  

[hyudien]

The government can't tax us in any way, because they already focus taxes on our local centralized exchanges. So as long as we hold Bitcoin in private wallets, for whatever reason the government cannot touch it or even impose taxes. That's why it's called decentralization which cannot be controlled by any party. Don't misunderstand crypto taxation, because the regulations that have been established, for example my country's local centralized exchange already has a legal license to operate including taxes. Where did they take it from? You may know that when trading there is a taker and maker system where the percentage is determined, how much goes to the exchange and how much goes to the state treasury. So we no longer need to think about taxes on private property.

[0t3p0t]

Can I transfer the BTC from my current address, to an address that no government can ever link to me?

Yes that is why mixers existed or you can manually convert your Bitcoins to an Altcoin like monero and then convert it back to Bitcoin. Though needs a lot of work but will possibly work on what you intended to do with your Bitcoins.

Centralized exchanges really has taxes on every transactions we made it is because they are compliant to regulations imposed by central banks.

[mirakal]

I think it's too difficult (but not impossible) to apply tax for owning Bitcoin due to the pseudonymous system of Bitcoin ownership, people can just store their Bitcoin on a wallet that are unknown to government. However Bitcoin transaction can easily be taxed on the Centralized Exchange, and that's is already implemented in my country, every crypto transaction, both crypt-crypto or crypto-fiat is taxed as much as 0.11% of the amount transacted, this is regulated by law. So, all exchange must follow.

With non-custodial wallets, that would be hard to traced them and tax those bitcoin owners. No one would even think that they are into bitcoin investment, most especially the government itself. Thanks for having a decentralized system wherein bitcoin becomes a private ownership away from the government control.

However, when bitcoin is kept in a centralized exchange, taxing was made easier since all centralized exchanges are monitored by the government and are subject to follow whatever rule imposed by the government. With that, taxing bitcoin owners will be a lot easy and very possible.

[Cookdata]

It's just YouTube, but today I ran across a video that mentioned a bitcoin HODL tax.

In order to stop Bitcoin, authorities would have to shut down the internet which is impossible. So I predict that their next move is to launch enormous taxes to discourage people from owning bitcoin and prevent mass adoption as competition for their corrupted CBDC's that still have to be launched. The purpose of their regulations is to take over the entire bitcoin market, of course. They will make you sell, either by launching huge taxes for ownership or by treating the owner of 1 BTC like a drug dealer (prison sentence).

In as much as I hate the government, the system is not a single person, it is always comprised of many people with different opinions and will never agree on the same thing unless a conclusion is reached and a bill is sent to be passed before it can be implemented. As for the tax, I think I know the US ways how digital investments are taxed and it is almost similar to what is being taxed on stocks and other investments. I don't think a reasonable person would want to use tax to kill the investors, if it is to discourage people, they will know and if it is indeed a legal asset people will protest in that country.

However, don't you think that the number of people that have Bitcoin is small for the government to have time for this, they will instead call for a total ban if they don't want something to prosper in their country if they have no intention of legalizing it.

So we need a gameplan against this.

Can we be exposed to taxation or legal penalties when the wallet is reported as stolen? I think not, but I want to be sure.
I don't think you can pay taxes on something you do not officially own. And neither can you pay taxes when you don't have money or own other assets.

I have purchased my first BTC on a regulated exchange with KYC. I don't prefer it because of privacy reasons, but I had no other choice at the time. From there it will go to my coldstorage device, which I consider reporting as stolen if a ownership tax is launched. However, authorities would know the BTC address (exchange will provide it) and every future transaction that came from it. So I could never move the funds after reporting it as stolen (I guess) as this demonstrates they were not stolen.

Can I transfer the BTC from my current address, to an address that no government can ever link to me?

Why do I feel like you are trying to evade tax from your Bitcoin? Not saying you should give the government what they are asking but for your own peace of mind and future problems, if Bitcoin is being taxed in your country and you hold it and you have made profits, kindly give Uncle Sam what he is asking you to avoid any problem later. It is not too hard isn't compared to what might happen later.

As for your wallet, I think it's only when you use a centralized exchange your identity can be known and Bitcoin can be traced, if you have a Bitcoin in your wallet, nobody can ever link that Bitcoin to you except if you bought it on an exchange that recognized you as the buy but don't ignore tax my friend.

[carlfebz2]

The government can't tax us in any way, because they already focus taxes on our local centralized exchanges. So as long as we hold Bitcoin in private wallets, for whatever reason the government cannot touch it or even impose taxes. That's why it's called decentralization which cannot be controlled by any party. Don't misunderstand crypto taxation, because the regulations that have been established, for example my country's local centralized exchange already has a legal license to operate including taxes. Where did they take it from? You may know that when trading there is a taker and maker system where the percentage is determined, how much goes to the exchange and how much goes to the state treasury. So we no longer need to think about taxes on private property.

This is why government hate up Bitcoin or cryptocurrency as a whole on which they cant really be able to snipped out some juice via taxes into those people who do make up transactions or earning big in this market.
Even now that we've seen that ETF's been that approved but i dont see the relevance of it but rather it is really just that for more regulating transactions and been that monitored on which i cant say that it does really bring out that kind of positivity of the entire market but rather i do see that they are getting having that good hold off towards this market but we know that it wouldnt be all.
There's always that portion on which government or institutions couldnt really be able to handle on.

Example here in our country, yet they arent regulated nor being banned but they are really that suggesting on making use of local crypto platforms on which this is the only
medium on where they could really be able to get those taxes. Yes, its not really that obvious but the fees or deductions are horrendous.

[Dzwaafu11]

I think this is pretty ridiculous and there's no chance of this ever happening.  I guess it's never a bad idea to think about all sorts of different possibilities that there could be coming with owning bitcoin, but, I just don't see this one ever coming to fruition.  I mean how would they even go about tracking everyone down and holding them accountable? 

Also, if they ever come to tax my bitcoin that I'm simply hodling, I will let them know they can suck it out of the tip of my ... yeah.

The government cannot even think of this. Remember that bitcoin cannot be controlled by the government, and bitcoin is a currency that operates on its own; nobody controls how the price is or other stuff that happens in the market. Further, anything that will make the government involved in bitcoin will affect the smooth running of the technology because governments will like to change many things that have been making it easier for us to use the technology, and anything that will not favour them will be changed. Remember that the government putting taxation on bitcoin holders will reduce investors from holding or using huge amounts to invest since they will be paying taxes.

However, one of the reasons why I still think this cannot happen is that when the government wants to take a decision, it will not be done by only one person; it will be done by a group of people. Everybody will come up with their own opinion, and we should know that all of their opinions will not go the same way. Some people will go against the motion, and some may support it. Therefore, I don’t think this will happen, and as a bitcoin enthusiast, I don’t want it to happen because it will affect the holders.

That would be a scary thought but how would they know how to target the people that are hodling or as you say owning a bitcoin? Because I can't understand how they'll be able to do that when there's a pseudonymous feature that bitcoin offers and we can all just put all of our bitcoins back to a non-custodial wallet so as to prevent the potential subpoena to get the data from the exchanges which is unlikely especially with international exchanges. The thing that's going to happen though is that people are definitely going to stop talking about bitcoin or crypto openly so as not raise any suspicions that they own bitcoin but I think that the ones that would hide are those that have a really small amount of bitcoin, those that have a lot of bitcoin wouldn't probably mind paying.

 Exactly.There is no way the government will be able to get access to our holdings unless we disclose it to them. Because you are not a holding centralised currency, remember that you are holding a decentralised currency that nobody is supposed to have access to unless with your permission. So I’m still trying to know how the government will think of doing this and succeed because I don’t see any way they will follow after bitcoin is full of privacy. However, did you think people would pay because, with all indications, even those who hoard large amounts of bitcoin won’t allow the governments to know that they are bitcoin holders? The reason is that because of the tax that they will pay, nobody will want to pay even if they have a small amount of bitcoin.

[_BlackStar]

Taxes haven't been an issue for me so far - especially in most cases. That bitcoin tax would obviously be a target for the government - but I'm not really sure they can get it from holders who don't sell it at all. The tax on value added has been implemented in several countries - the government doesn't even need to ask you to pay it manually because exchanges have integrated deductions for tax when you sell bitcoin or altcoin assets.

Owning bitcoin is so far not taxed - but some users have to accept that they are set to pay tax on their investment profits especially when converting them to fiat or other altcoins. After all, bitcoin wasn't created to allow us to completely avoid tax - so we don't need to put extra effort into avoiding it if we don't want to break the rules and get penalized.

[franky1]

I wish I could only pay 28% tax!

^
lets calculate extremes
joins bitcoin 2015 so presumably has year2015 aged coin(~$500 max)
if sold at $40k(december 2023 + min) is 8000% profit... but worries about 28%-40% tax

even taking 28% cut ($28000 equiv) is ~5700% profit
even taking 40% cut ($24000 equiv) is ~4800% profit

bitcoin prices were 24k-28k not even 4 months ago. so the last three-ish months is where bitcoin increased to pay your taxes for you at last septembers profit price.
your still making an average of 5000% profit even after tax

but if you want to avoid-evade taxes entirely. show no gains by swapping your aged/tainted coins with a miner who mined this week. you get clean fresh mined coins(and can show proof of clean non-taint). you then total up hardware cost and electric cost to mine such amount and deduct that as a COST against the coin. and if lucky to have expensive electric you can claim it as a loss/break even. but at a minimum not be classing its as huge gain compared to your original old stash gains

you should seek out a financial adviser to get details straight and answer the "what if" fears that are plaguing your mind.
a fresh prospective will help you worry less and instead see you are still making profit... else there is no profit to tax.

[LoyceV]

but worries about 28%-40% tax

You're missing the point here. I was talking about income tax, and that goes up to 49.5% here. Or higher on certain brackets, because you'll lose other tax benefits that aren't shown directly.

a fresh prospective will help you worry less and instead see you are still making profit... else there is no profit to tax.

As for our wealth tax: it doesn't matter if you make profit. That's great if you make huge profits, it's bad if you make losses.