[P2P-F] Bitcoin @ EFF

[Douglas Rushkoff]

In United States, the intention or category of service can't really be  
left to the interpretation of the doer.

It is true that favors are not taxed. But the distinction between  
favor and commercial service is not left up to the people conducting  
the transaction to define. The favor must be in a field or service for  
which the doer does not get paid otherwise. A refrigerator repairman  
cannot fix someone's fridge in the non-taxable neighborhood scheme,  
because he does it professionally.

The real distinction I'm trying to draw is less about whether the  
individuals need to report their income to the IRS than about whether  
the organization administrating those transactions is responsible for  
reporting to the IRS and those who conducted the transaction.

If the currency corresponds to a fixed dollar amount, then the  
administrators of the transaction are not obligated to inform the  
traders of the cash-equivalent of the transaction, since it would  
already be known.


On Jan 24, 2011, at 10:45 AM, Prof. Dr. Margrit Kennedy wrote:

> very simply: as long as the exchange is equivalent to a neighborhood  
> service you do not pay tax, as soon as you get into professional  
> dimensions you do
> Margrit Kennedy
>
> Prof. Dr. Margrit Kennedy
> MonNetA, Ginsterweg 3
> 31595 Steyerberg, Germany
> Tel. +49 5764 942403
> margritkennedy at monneta.org
> www.margritkennedy.de
> www.monneta.org
>
> Am 24.01.2011 um 14:16 schrieb Douglas Rushkoff:
>
>> Meanwhile, Venessa Meimis just forwarded this:
>>
>> www.unifiedfieldbank.com
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jan 23, 2011, at 10:11 PM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>
>>> european LETS faced the same tax issues in the 80's-90's but they  
>>> all seemed to have solved them ... but they do pay some kind of  
>>> taxes,
>>>
>>> do we have an expert on these aspects here?
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 12:16 AM, Douglas Rushkoff <rushkoff at gmail.com 
>>> > wrote:
>>> Fascinating. Sounds like he got the same attack that Paypal did in  
>>> the early days, when the banks went after the company for earning  
>>> its profit on the "float."
>>>
>>> The thing that could bring Bitcoin to its knees in the US is the  
>>> tax law. Ultimately, the network operator would be responsible for  
>>> tax reporting when people are making exchanges of value and not  
>>> using cash. I found all this out while working with the Superfluid  
>>> guys.  If I administrate trades for you like ebay does, in US  
>>> currency, I'm not obligated to produce 1099's. If I don't do the  
>>> value exchange in dollars, I must report the dollar equivalency to  
>>> the IRS.
>>>
>>> This law has yet to be enforced, but it surely would be if any of  
>>> these currencies scaled up.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jan 23, 2011, at 11:59 AM, magius wrote:
>>>
>>> > Bitcoin and Opencoin are "sons" of David Chaum's Digicash both.  
>>> Chaum
>>> > is one of the most important cryptographers and freedom fighters  
>>> in
>>> > the world and invented in the eighties the first digital cash,  
>>> that
>>> > was refused, attacked and destroyed by credit card companies
>>> > societies, that instead wanted to propagate a model not based on
>>> > anonimity. The big difference between them is that Bitcoin is a
>>> > complete currency system instead Opencoin is the system to make a
>>> > currency (a digital mint). Bitcoin you need to use as-it-is, with
>>> > Opencoin instead you can create your own currency system.
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
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>>
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