Quote:
Originally Posted by Webmaster Advertising
Bitcoin is already taxed in the US, or at least is supposed to be, just like Paypal income.
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Much like any other income, companies can declare bitcoin income if they wish, there's nothing new or different from income from any other source.
The matter it is the "know your customer" banking regulations. At least at the point you convert cash into bitcoin, or bitcoin into cash, you should know who paid who. Banks are closing accounts of all the exchangers lately.
Also, except trading bitcoin just for the sake of gamble on it, I see bitcoins are mostly used for anonymous transactions such as in silk-road to buy things you don't want anyone know you purchased. So I don't think this "user base" blends well with regulations.
Further, bitcoin it is pseudonymous, not anonymous, because erveryone knows what address paid what other address - then at the moment someone cashes in dollar, must use a bank, and you know who gets the money, along with all the traces back to what he purchased in first place. There are bitcoin laundering services for this purpose but they're messy and shady.
But bitcoin it could be ehnanced in a future to make transactions really untraceable, with Zerocoin add-on or similar:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Zerocoin
If that's implemented, then really the govt's or banks can not know who paid who, and simply have people who go cash bitcoins coming from "nowhere", not even another address. At that point it could be there will be 2 type if coins, the traceable and anonymous ones. Those traceable will be legal but must declare all and send ID's like an payoneer/paxum card; those not traceable will be simply illegal for anyone to convert from and to cash.