Topic: Bitcoin as a new way to embrace taxes - page 2. (Read 2237 times)

But are road building projects really comparable to laying coax cable?

What is the capex of a major road building project, and what is the capex of laying cables? I'm genuinely curious to see some numbers.

a new currency which is realy transparent on the wallet but not user 

It's called tax choice, where different departments can compete for your tax funds. It's essentially free-market anarchy plus mandatory contributions of XX dollars to any or all government departments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_choice

So it's one step closer to actual free markets.

OP, how about instead of straining over how to tax bitcoin so politicians can decide how to spend a large fraction of your income to pay private contractors to build roads, why not just think about ways by which roads and bridges can be built voluntarily (i.e. in the same way that cable television service, computers, cars, food, etc.. are produced) and paid for by use-fees?

That sentence is morally repugnant.

Taxes are not payments for services any more than rape is a form of dating.

Payments for services are negotiated and voluntary. Taxes are unilaterally imposed and violently enforced. Taxes are about a minority of society gaining control of the enforcement apparatus and imposing their preferences on everybody else, using violence if necessary.

If you want to talk about non-coercive ways to fund hospitals, roads, etc, then that's great but don't call it taxation.

I have always held rather similar beliefs, you have a government website with a series of categories, every category has a subcategory down to the lowest levels so you can subscribe or unsubscribe as you please, so if for example you back up the law that prohibits people from smoking in your local park you can subscribe to that service, if enough people subscribe widespread enforcement could then take place but you would pay higher taxes in exchange for the "service".

You would also have a choice between different service providers such as policing service, firefighters and so on, you would chose your police the same way you chose your internet provider. Taxes are really payments to the government in exchange for services.

This is fundamentally superior than coercing the potentially wise 49% for paying for useless wars of the 51% and favors both evolution and natural selection, this neo-anarchistic approach is also trivial to implement.

I had a lenghty and rough discussion with a couple of dubious friends, and thought I'd share the way I managed to nail some interest into them.
They were aware about this new "electronic cash", to begin with.

1 - Sweep away the concept of money. Bitcoin is just another "Like", exactly as the ones on facebook or other shitty, so-called social networks.
2 - Introduce the concept of crowdfunding, and talk about some great acheivements.
3 - When we need a new hospital or a bridge being repaired, most of the time, a private company will be chosen by people we elected to decide for us.
4 - Those choices (they make in our name) have been proven to be based on friendship/corruption, and it's becoming more and more frequent.

Then, throw an open discussion about bitcoin, and make it clear that:
- Bitcoins cannot be stolen/seized.
- Bitcoins (and very tiny fractions of bitcoins) can be transmitted in a matter of minutes.
- Bitcoins cannot be forged, and are limited to 21m units.
- Bitcoins can be tracked down, as any transaction is public.

5 - We need bridges. We need hospitals.
6 - They are repairing bridges and building hospitals with our money.
7 - If our money, why couldn't we chose?

Bitcoin allows us to upvote such projects, and prove that we did.

Any discussion from that point will most likely convince any non-beleiver that bitcoin has a role to play.
Not as a money transmitter, but as a new way to consider taxes.
One that goes willingfully from the taxpayer to the useful projects.
Corruption will get much less efficient, with everyone deciding.

Of course, we cannot decide for each bridge being repaired in the world. But there are sensitive solutions to that issue.
I'm sure you know what I mean.

Anyway... Bitcoin is new approach to global contribution (aka taxes), one that you cannot easily cheat with.
And one that cannot be embezzeled.

You vote.
They get the job done.