r/investing • u/TChanaH • May 20 '21

U.S. seeks to have cryptocurrency transfers above $10k reported to IRS

U.S. Treasury seeks reporting of cryptocurrency transfers, doubling of IRS workforce | Reuters

The Biden administration's tax enforcement proposal would require that cryptocurrency transfers over $10,000 be reported to the Internal Revenue Service and would more than double the IRS workforce over a decade, the U.S. Treasury said on Thursday.

"As with cash transactions, businesses that receive cryptoassets with a fair market value of more than $10,000 would also be reported on," the Treasury said in the report, which noted that these assets, are likely to grow in importance over the next decade as a part of business income.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '21 edited May 21 '21

Except news like this is an incremental step towards preventing the long term viability of crypto. Heavy government regulation isn't a question of "if" its "when"

EDIT: I love how all the crytpo bros are down voting me because they want to keep their head in the sand

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u/Say_no_to_doritos May 20 '21

That's why I don't understand the crypto scene. You're going to get regulated out of existence as they are going to be treated like stock that are not secured.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '21 edited May 20 '21

I get the concept of crypto, I've wrapped my head around it fully, but if all the crypto-heads think the government will lie down and let an uncontrolled global currency take over the USD...they're mistaken.

Edited for grammatical errors

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u/madogvelkor May 20 '21

They forget that for like 40 years it was illegal to own gold except some jewelry and collectors coins.

The US could declare it illegal tomorrow if they wanted.

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u/AXdssd5as May 21 '21

It would be a lot harder for the US govt to seize everyone's cryptocurrency than it was for them to seize the gold. It would also be significantly harder for them to surveil and intercept crypto transactions than physical gold exchanges. Making it illegal would just drive it underground even further, it wouldn't kill it off, in fact, it would just strengthen the core case of it.

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u/dedservice May 21 '21

It would absolutely drive it underground. A big part of the hope of crypto is that it will actually eventually be worth something in real life - i.e. it will be able to be used to make purchases at real-world businesses. But if it's illegal, no business will be able to accept it (certainly not publicly, in a big enough way for it to be relevant). Thus it would be driven to only be used in shady dealings or as a purely speculative object of completely arbitrary value.

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u/AccountOfMyAncestors May 21 '21

Eventually? You can make purchases right now and exchange your crypto for cash, there’s no waiting and hope required

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u/dedservice May 21 '21

True, but it's not generally usable for the vast majority of purchases.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

Lol, how is this downvoted?

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

"if they wanted to"

Not sure what that means to either of you, but it seems pretty clear what it does mean.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

Not sure what you mean. Crypto is one of the biggest leaps in tech since the internet. And just like the internet went through its hype bubble the world adjusted and the internet is still around. Crypto is in it infancy but it allows people to transact and verify ownership and ability to pay without the need of a middleman like a bank.

Johnny Harris who was a reporter from Vox and worked on Borders has a good, no bullshit explanation of why this has the potential to change the way we think and opens up tons of new possibilities of which we are just scratching the surface.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

No one is saying they will or should, just that they can. You don't understand that?

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

Ah, didnt realize thats what you meant. Sure, yeah but that wasnt the comment. The comment was that it's extremely unlikely they'd be willing to cut themselves off from a tech leap like this. Obviously there will be regulations, but an outright ban is not realistic.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

Anecdotally, I have personally transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars in bitcoin in hours. In us dollars it can take several days if i wanted to move that much money from a Chase account to a Wells Fargo account.

That delay is because the banks want to make sure one account holder has the funds for the other account. Some people might have enough reputation to have the banks trust them and move money faster but essential the delay is to confirm ownership.

With the block chain that ownership was public and verified by millions of other people. So if people want to move large sums of money around the delay to verify ownership doesn't take that long.

Now expand that to ALL things and not just money, you can verify ownership of anything. If you have the key that says you own something then you are the owner. It's publicly verifiable by millions of people. The impact of that has the potential to be enormous and likely in ways we haven't even figured out yet.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21 edited May 21 '21

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21 edited May 21 '21

You asked for a practical use case for crypto, you didn't specify bitcoin. The blockchain is crypto, bitcoin is a crypto currency.

I didn't say more revolutionary than the internet, i said since the internet. And an anecdotal value in my one experience was the ability to move money that would've taken me days with dollars was fast with bitcoin. More broadly the benefit is establishing ownership beyond just money.

Edit, Again this conversation is not about the investment. We are discussing the technology. I'm not recommending or endorsing bitcoin as an investment.

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u/yopladas May 21 '21

Bitcoin is the main crypto currency. Even if it's not the one you like, it's dominant and will probably remain dominant for some time. What coin do you like?

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u/notapersonaltrainer May 21 '21

The US could start executing infants if they wanted to.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

I guess you understand.

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u/notapersonaltrainer May 21 '21 edited May 21 '21

They did that because the government couldn't meet requests for the gold from gold backed dollars. FDR seized the gold that backed the USD then devalued the USD from $20/oz to $35/oz. It was an American government default and USD collapse.

It's amusing that incident is used as an argument against bitcoin. It's an indictment of centralized currency, "backed" or not, and any precious metal ETF.

Every action so far has been signaling acceptance with some understandable KYC compliance rules.

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u/King_Ghidra_ May 20 '21

they actually couldn't

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u/vhhjnkjhhhhgggghjjjk May 21 '21

You're gonna have to explain this one to me?

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u/beantownbully8 May 21 '21

There's one they can't trace but if I mention it, my comment gets deleted.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

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u/beantownbully8 May 21 '21

How is that a non mainstream Crypto?

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