AFAIK, it's ambiguous if governments consider BitCoin to be currency. I thought that's why BTC theft is problematic: as far as the law is concerned, nothing of value was taken, and at best you'd have to prosecute under hacking laws, not theft.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to call it a commodity? Stocks are (usually) stakes in a company, whose employees are actively trying to make a profit for the shareholders, whereas currencies just kind of... sit there (and move around, more or less randomly, at least, non-predictably).
i believe currencies are traded in the form of FOREX futures, which are contracts that must be settled on a date sometime from now. they are not mediated by an exchange like NASDAQ if memory serves, its just one big crazy open market.
i would say bitcoin trading belongs in the category of DIGEX then, a digital currency exchange.
They're still paid in EUR, just getting some of that converted to BTC. If selling the BTC later on makes them a profit, it becomes the responsibility of the employee to report any profits.
The greater problem is how the employer manages to get a hold of larger amounts of BTC needed.
That's true. They're using the Finnish exchanger (Bittiraha) which also provides payment services for world's first Bitcoin-accepting dental clinic (MeidänKlinikka) as well as Finland's first Bitcoin-accepting restaurant (Vegemesta).
> The greater problem is how the employer manages to get a hold of larger amounts of BTC needed.
If I were the employer, I'd be wringing my hands; for all I know they could've gotten a small fortune in BTC when they were still cheap to generate / purchase, and since then the value of BTC has sixtupled (or more). So, pay their employees without having to spend real money. I'm probably not understanding BTC though.
I'm not sure how the taxes work but wouldn't it be kind of like buying shares as a company that made good profits. It's not free money in the eyes of the tax office.
And it is not free money even if you didn't pay the taxes. Who knew 2 years ago that bitcoin would be trading now at almost $50 a pop? There has always been huge risk with buying bitcoins, since it is so new technology.
The same way they tax transactions in foreign currencies: you self-report taxes. If you don't report all your taxes, and you get caught, then you pay all of those taxes, plus interest (above market-rate interest), plus penalties, and they send you on an all-expenses paid vacation to a federal detention center for a few months or years.
Also, substantially failing to report your income effectively means that your tax year never closes, which means that the IRS has effectively until the end of time to pursue you for unreported income. (Whereas normally there is a 3-6 year statute of limitations for the IRS to audit you.)
That seems about as notable as being paid in Turkish lira or in watermelons. Anyone can take their salary in local currency and exchange it for something else. There's little incentive to lock part of your salary in a foreign(?) currency when they "use the daily exchange rate of the payday."
"Based on cryptography, it is secure and deterministic as we require for digital services."
This is a bad understanding of cryptography. Bitcoin does not provide security in the cryptographic sense, any more than Skype or Hushmail. It uses secure cryptographic primitives but can be successfully attacked (double-spent) in polynomial time.
No, perhaps it would be better phrased as this: Bitcoin does not meet the minimum standard of security required by modern cryptography despite being built on systems that do meet such a standard. Even that phrasing is suboptimal, though, since the definition of "security" for a hash function is different from the definition for a signature system and both are different from the definition used for digital cash.
I understood that if you want, you can ask to be paid a part of your salary in BTC.
If I was to work for them, I would definitely ask them to automatically pay me like 1% of my salary in BTC each month.
Why? Because I could.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 70.4 ms ] threadPersonally, I find tax returns are bad enough without including multiple currencies! :-)
(I'm a BitCoin noob, tell me if I'm wrong.) :)
i would say bitcoin trading belongs in the category of DIGEX then, a digital currency exchange.
Seriously. Is there any simple guidance on how to figure your income if paid in BTC?
The greater problem is how the employer manages to get a hold of larger amounts of BTC needed.
They are using external service for that AFAIK. The company itself does not manage the bitcoin purchases.
If I were the employer, I'd be wringing my hands; for all I know they could've gotten a small fortune in BTC when they were still cheap to generate / purchase, and since then the value of BTC has sixtupled (or more). So, pay their employees without having to spend real money. I'm probably not understanding BTC though.
You probably get the same thing you do with the cash economy where people just make up the lowest figure that sounds vaguely plausible.
Also, substantially failing to report your income effectively means that your tax year never closes, which means that the IRS has effectively until the end of time to pursue you for unreported income. (Whereas normally there is a 3-6 year statute of limitations for the IRS to audit you.)
With bitcoin it is like having your money spread across thousands of anonymous bank accounts which are opened by secret handshake.
This is a bad understanding of cryptography. Bitcoin does not provide security in the cryptographic sense, any more than Skype or Hushmail. It uses secure cryptographic primitives but can be successfully attacked (double-spent) in polynomial time.
Does that kind of sentence promote better understanding how cryptography or bitcoin works for the average Joe?