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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday November 12 2017, @02:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the good-enough-for-Al-Capone dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The 10,000 bitcoins that seven years ago famously paid for the delivery of two Papa John's pizzas would be worth more than $74 million today.

The exploding value of the cryptocurrency since its first real-world transaction in 2010 is one reason the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is pushing to see records on thousands of users of Coinbase Inc., one of the biggest U.S. online exchanges. The company's digital currency platform allows gains to be converted into old-fashioned dollars in transactions that the IRS alleges are going unreported.

Coinbase and industry trade groups are fighting back in court, claiming the government's concerns about tax fraud are unfounded and that its sweeping demand for information is a threat to privacy.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-09/coinbase-escalates-showdown-on-u-s-tax-probe-as-bitcoin-surges


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday November 12 2017, @04:00PM (14 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Sunday November 12 2017, @04:00PM (#595916) Homepage Journal

    I have always wondered why the tax authorities have the right to your private financial information, in the absence of any suspicion of wrong-doing. Really, they should need a warrant to access your bank data, your salary, etc..

    Sure, some people would cheat on their taxes. Tough. No one ever said law enforcement was an easy job.

    --
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @04:22PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @04:22PM (#595918)

    If a warrant were required, we'd need to change the constitution or, worse, hand out warrants in bulk to cover all people.

    People simply would not pay taxes. It starts with a modest portion of the population, suppose 10% for example. Others see how that is working out, hate the unfairness, and decide to take the opportunity as well. It's like how many people will loot only if they see others doing it. Before long, it's more like 90% cheating on taxes.

    Greece had something like this going. Cheating on taxes became a national pastime, contributing to severe problems for the country.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by BK on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:11PM

      by BK (4868) on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:11PM (#595933)

      Warrants in bulk are already unconstitutional. It's called a general writ and it's explicitly forbidden by the USA constitution.

        This is actually a great argument for property taxes. Of course then, you can only tax the property can see. But I'm OK with that.

      --
      ...but you HAVE heard of me.
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by crafoo on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:24PM (4 children)

      by crafoo (6639) on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:24PM (#595938)

      Maybe universal income tax should go away then. We can eliminate most of the IRS, tax services, and other undocumented drags on the economy.

      If something is too difficult to be done, that doesn't mean we should toss out inalienable rights to get it done. We must look hard at what we are doing, why, and at what cost to our civilization.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Sunday November 12 2017, @06:45PM

        by sjames (2882) on Sunday November 12 2017, @06:45PM (#595966) Journal

        It is notable that when the income tax started, the vast majority of people weren't required to file. Unfortunately, the brackets weren't indexed to inflation, so over time later legislatures were able to tax increasing proportions of the population through simple inaction.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:26PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:26PM (#595974)

        Maybe universal income tax should go away then.

        Progressive taxes is how you institute any basic notion of fairness into the financial system. Without such a system, the wealthy simply get more wealthy a lot quicker, and the poors starve instead. Then you have a revolution or Zimbabwe scenario and things start again. Personally, I would rather have the wealthy pay taxes so government can pay the poors to provide services to the wealthy without causing inflation to strip away meagre savings of the poors.

        You see, you really want strong progressive tax system in place. The alternative is you fuck the country and screw the future so some can take faster. And if those rich want to maintain their riches, then they really want to have strong progressive tax system too, since when the poors revolt, they lose their shit too.

        at what cost to our civilization.

        Exactly. Otherwise you may start to equate money with things like social order, and not having Syria type civil wars. If you want stability in your nation, you want to reduce income inequality and at least have a perception that the rich are paying more taxes even when their increased share is insignificant when comparing disposable incomes.

        • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday November 13 2017, @12:59AM (1 child)

          by crafoo (6639) on Monday November 13 2017, @12:59AM (#596026)

          Are you making an argument for or against income tax? I can't really tell. I assume you know the wealthy aren't really affected by income tax. Capital gains tax is maybe what you mean?

          Income inequality is fine and expected. The is a pretty big variation in people's capabilities, motivation, and industriousness. What we want to allow for is very easy mobility. Remove barriers for success. Open as many avenues for success to as many people as possible. Progressively apply larger tax pressures and "enforced responsibilities" as a corporation grows. No free rides though. People have to choose to put in the effort and take the risks.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @04:05AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @04:05AM (#596056)

            The is a pretty big variation in people's capabilities, motivation, and industriousness.

            You're right. Sociopaths are superior beings and clearly deserve the lion's share of our economic output.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:38PM (#595943)

      paying the scum at the irs is sedition.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @06:19PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @06:19PM (#595955)

      If you must have an army of inspectors looking into the minute financial details of a large swath of the population, then maybe you've designed a bad system.

      It sounds like your system of taxation is not anti-fragile.

      I mean, don't you want the funding of essential services to be a matter of voluntary exchange, in that everyone involved thinks it is perfectly natural to pay his "fair share"? That way, you don't have to enforce it; it's just natural. Well, your system fails miserably at that. Maybe you should re-think it.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:12PM (4 children)

        by mhajicek (51) on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:12PM (#595972)

        No, those in power do not want your subservience to be voluntary.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:30PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @07:30PM (#595976)

          While there is some truth to what you say the problem is that too many people would opt not to pay. The average human is short sighted and would not care to fund police, fire, or medical services let alone parks and rec and other such minor programs.

          The problem is that these services do help society a lot, but people on their own would not fund them sufficiently. If you make everything optional you end up with a worse system than we have now with capitalist corporations doing everything they can to avoid taxation.

          While I like the concept of pure freedom the reality is that human society, no the human animal itself, is not capable of successfully sustaining it. We need direction, at least until every human born is capable of being reliably saint-like.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Monday November 13 2017, @12:25AM (2 children)

            by jmorris (4844) on Monday November 13 2017, @12:25AM (#596021)

            would not care to fund police, fire, or medical services let alone parks and rec and other such minor programs

            I dunno, most people seem to like the idea of medical insurance, it being utterly unaffordable because of government meddling is the problem. Give people an option to pay a reasonable amount for decent coverage and it sells. Tell people there is reasonable private options and we aren't going to give out freebies anymore to deadbeats unless they are REALLY hard luck cases and most will get the hint that if they have a choice between the medical insurance and cable, pay the insurance. Problem is it is currently often a choice between medical insurance and a mortgage + utilities.

            The first fire departments were created by the insurance industry to save money, why couldn't that model still work? Parks aren't super expensive, lots of people would love to pay for them, might put their name on them but we put SOMEBODY's name on em anyway. The problem was socialism came along and the serpent tongues convinced people the government had to do everything that didn't involve direct cash for goods or service and then government should do (or just regulate into a crippling stupor) most of that as well.

            Government does nothing well. Nothing. There are a few vital functions we lack the social tech to accomplish any other way so we need a government, but it should be as severely limited as possible to minimize the inefficiency, stupidity and evil it always generates.

            We need direction, at least until every human born is capable of being reliably saint-like.

            That has to be one of the more evil things written. From that mindset comes every foul totalitarian hellhole that ever existed. No, the correct solution is to build a system for fallen humans since that is all that is available anyway. Where do you think you are going to find these saint-like rulers to "direct" us? You have to assume they, being human, are also fallen. Stop believing you can Immanentize the Eschaton and build a system that can survive being implemented and operated by humans. You do that with severely limited powers, transparency, divided power and rotating people out of government service to force them to live under the laws they make.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @01:33AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @01:33AM (#596032)

              "That has to be one of the more evil things written"

              But its true. People ( as a whole, not the individual ) need to be lead. They can not function without one.

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @03:05AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @03:05AM (#596047)

              You're a moron on pretty much everything other than technical discussions. There is a middle ground between totalitarian regimes and anarchy, but apparently you're a windbag that can't figure it out. We don't have saintlike leaders but we do have a system in place (democracy lite) that keeps a constant turnover to make sure we don't end up with a dirtbag forever.

              We are all now in danger from nutters like you who vote for liars and encourage ignorant destruction of government. Stupid schemes to reinvent the entire concept of government that would either throw us into a Mad Max future or take us right back to evil "government". You got so triggered by my pointing out simple reality, you should think about that.