Topic: New IRS rules for BTC as related to US Tax payers (Read 5913 times)

There are very few countries without taxes, I didn't think that was what was being discussed though. US federal taxes as a whole do not go back to the general welfare of the citizens. Some county and state taxes may, but largely not, and it's still up to the local and state governments to properly use the funds, which few do.

I was laughing because the reality is, a fraction of a percent of taxes goes back to general welfare of society.

Show me a country where there is no tax; and you can keep laughing

Hahahahahahaha.... oh man, that made me laugh.

US taxes go to make politicians fat, go to other countries, help fuel the American war machine...  rarely ever roads, especially if you've seen any of them.

*Sigh*

Everything eventually dies
And so as the anonymity with bitcoin

Very well summed.
I agree this might intimidate most miners (esp. in US).
But overall it won't be a big deal.
And eventually people will adopt IRS ruling. That's a good thing.
Think about it. Tax money goes back to your grandfather, your kids, your neighbors, the road that you drive on every morning.

BTC is being taxed similarly to fiat currency.
BTC has the superiority that fiat currency doesn't.
IMHO, with or without being taxed, BTC is still superior to fiat.

SO much for anonymity eh? Satoshi would be sad.

Actually this is not a problem at all.  Recording transactions is what Bitcoin is all about.

It should be easy to establish base for a Bitcoin transaction.  It is all in blockchain.  All that is needed is a simple change to client software, and of course all U.S. citizens will have to report their Bitcoin addresses to IRS. 
There is absolutely no doubt I my mind, all patriotic U.S. citizens will dutifully do so.

I would like to point out a few things this thread is omitting.

1) I do not know why anyone would be surprised by the ruling because it is a limited-supply digital commodity AND digital currency. Read "digital" as "better" in terms of ease of exchange, as merchants get on board.  There was never any reason to think that it would not be treated like any other commodity or FOREIGN CURRENCY subject to normal capital gains.  The IRS publishes an official December 31 exchange rate on all currencies so that you can calculate your capital gains.  Currencies are commodities, subject to normal supply and demand rules. The only difference is that your government defines which commodity (currency) you must use to pay taxes in and therefore if you have capital gains or not (none in the case of the asset/commodity we call "dollars").  We used to pay taxes in silver, a era commodity that was historically also called a currency. The best currency is the commodity that can't be counterfeited, can be easily transported, and changes the least relative to a basket of the most common commodities so that true economic value remains unchanged since traditional commodities (physical or energetic as opposed to currency) are the fundamental inputs to society.

2) Therefore the IRS has declared bitcoin is the same as foreign currency.

3) I do not know why coindesk wants to keep slamming bitcoin over this *expected* tax clarification without any rational consideration, discussion, or explanation.

4) The current drop is partly due to people selling in order to pay their taxes. I am sure MANY bought below $200 sold a largish portion above $1,000 and therefore they are paying 50% taxes in terms of late-2013 bitcoins instead of 25% because the coins are now worth less than half of where they made the profit.  For example, if you bought 100 bitcoins "early" last year at $100 and sold 50 at $1000, you have $45k in short term gains, and used the money for something else. Today they would have to sell 25 coins to pay the taxes, a 50% tax rate in terms of bitcoins.  I'm holding at least until a few weeks after April 15.  

5) If a miner declares it a business, he owes 15% social security/medicare in addition to 33% in federal income taxes  (48% plus state taxes) if he made a substantial amount.  I don't know if he can do it, but it would be good to call the expenses a loss on the capital gain investment (cost basis) and get the 15% rate instead.  The only other way to lower the 48% is to declare it treatment like a C-corp with dividends and declare a low "salary" to get the self-employment tax down.  Or start a SEP IRA for the business and lock up to 20% of the profit in the IRA and not have to pay today's taxes on that portion (but taxed when withdraw at your "retirement" tax rate (without SE tax?).  Then don't forget you have to pay for your own health care and in some places your children's education to get something decent, and you can't really expect the social security retirement to ever come through, whereas normal countries offer these things in exchange for a similar tax rate.  All military-dominant societies like the US collapse like this: by using an excessively strong currency and debt structures (IMF/world bank) to force other populations into excessive labor and getting access to cheap commodities. The colonial slaves (Asia in our case) become the only experts as the empire citizens get too lazy. The slaves then can make better deals with the commodity producers (S. America, Africa, Arabic oil, and even Australia) so that the empire's currency is no longer able to get cheap access to even the commodities even if it tried to produce things again.

6) If its dollar value does not change there are no taxes owed.  Why is coindesk acting like making a PROFIT from doing nothing and having to pay taxes on it is a death blow to bitcoin as a currency which is not supposed to be increasing in value?  Even the sting of a loss on bitcoin is reduced by the tax deduction.  If you are willing to take the risk on it losing value, there is nothing new here except that the IRS has made the obvious and expected definition the rule.

I also don't follow the logic. You're taxed on many things including property, they don't expect you to send 20% of your vinyl siding.. they expect you to send the USD of its value.

I'm failing to grasp your logic here...if taxes were to be acceptable using BTC, now THAT would be a good thing for bitcoin. Paying income tax is definitely voluntary... Just like I voluntarily don't rob banks or kill people, because staying out of prison is high on my priority list, as is not being audited and having everything I own taken from me.

I read that. Was a stroke of pure genius xD Hopefully this makes IRS change there statements to benefit us, and punish DPR appropriately.

The IRS ruling on bitcoin may cause the drop of money laundering charges towards DPR:
http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/news/irs-ruling-to-help-silk-road-creator-in-court/2014/04/02

My take:

It gives certain businesses and ventures a good feeling and eases their tension about cryptocurrency for whatever purpose they have in mind to use or exploit it. So some places will feel better about it, but the reality is you won't see widespread adoption by a lot of smaller places because of the additional pain which comes from the potential level of detail an audit could induce.

Therefore, it's bad for the original purpose of cryptocurrency, because the subtlety being skirted here is that they're suffocating the movement in its sleep.

If you've ever been through an audit or threatened by an audit, you understand what I'm saying here. Imagine just one of your transactions being in question on the chain, likely one where you rolled one coin into another and another and it just looks fishy, or heaven forbid you send coin to some place like the Mid East.

This is probably part of the reason the IRS has quietly been forcing US based companies and exchanges to hand over user/address information. Google it.. Coinbase, CampBX and the rest have been doing this for awhile now. The IRS's ruling didn't come as a surprise, it was planned carefully.

They're voluntary, but your basically risking an audit everytime. Even if it's a small risk, I wouldn't risk it personally.

Yes.
Income taxes are "voluntary", Harry Reid said so.

I believe this is a monumental opportunity for bitcoin.
Watch the IRS flail about as it attempts to tax everything that moves including 1's and 0's.
And fail stupendously.

Since the tax is due in USD and not bitcoin, I expect this will quickly hasten the demise of the dollar and send BTC exponentially upward.
This will also result in the US government hyper inflating away its debts, and the IRS turning into a septic cleaning service to clear out all their inked TP.


Grab the popcorn. This should be a good show. David vs. Goliath like.

Ladies-N-Gents .....

Remember when I said the removal of the uncertainty was a velocity creator for BTC (i.e a V-E-R-Y G-O-O-D thing) in the U.S.A ...... well .... looks like it is -> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/03/31/square-now-lets-sellers-accept-bitcoin-storefronts/ .  You see (at least as I see it), values based on speculation and representative Fiat value store alone is, by my estimation, an incomplete picture.  *WE* (and others) need more merchant channels utilizing BTC as a representation of value (i.e. real currency) so velocity supports the fiat-TO-fiat price and NOT inter-currency spread speculation.  Now my thoughts have come full circle.  I see this whole banana (peel and all) as a GOOD thing.  What say you???

H@shKraker

This is really good news and or complete death of alt coins.    Nothing in between.   Hoping it is good news.  I have an accounting degree and I did my 2012 taxes based on just about exactly the rules they picked today.   Pretty much the only correct method to do them.  The business articles that mention this as a blow to miners are written for people that have no training in finance/accounting/tax law.  All necessary evils in a civilized world.

I think Bitcoin can success even if it is not a global currency, it can success as a global commodity that you can keep without third party risk, you can exchange it easily and you buy quite a number of things with it

When you buy something with it you do have to consider capital gains in the states but not everybody lives in the states and I think it is not such a set back in a long term perspective

I agree w you.   If they designed it as a curency then people would use it as such.  But they designed it like a commodity and so no wonder it attracts speculators.   IRS has to treat is as commodity due to current laws.  Even as currency it can only exchange amongst an internal group like funny money in strip clubs or poker chips in casinos.  Even those money are backed by the issuer.  Who is backing bitcoin?    I think it near impossible to invent a currency to compete or supplant w fiat like USD.   Especially one with a political agenda which most people disagree with.  The designers didn't really consider the economic reason for Central Banks or elasticity of money.  

Right but the goal of bitcoin is to be a global currency, not a commodity. It will never see widespread adoption if the consumer has to worry about tracking the price a BTC was bought for vs the price it is selling for when he goes to use said BTC in a transaction with a merchant. Imagine if every time you spent a dollar, you might be liable for capital gains tax because that dollar increased in value since you acquired it. It's not feasible.

Its not even legal tender so the merchant would have to convert back to fiat anyways. If they need fiat to operate their business

The easiest way to do this is through a service similar to credit or debit cards.   Isn't there some service for this already?

Its a pain to use bitcoins currency.   No different if you work for dollars then instead of a checking account you buy gold.  When you need dollars you sell that gold back to dollars to make purchases

Obviously bitcoins would have to be taxed, and to be frank I loathe the people on this forum who are always saying "screw the NWO  government, Alex jones is my hero and they'll never catch me!" But the tax code renders bitcoin as a currency useless. It's still fine for making big purchases now and then, but if you wanted to walk around a city and use it like cash, buying lunch here a few drinks there, dinner here...it turns into an accounting nightmare.

It isn't really good or bad. People that thought they could somehow get away with not paying taxes in the US are naive as hell.

If anything I think overall it is good because they clarified that you can indeed pay a lower tax rate for long term gains.

I doubt this news is the reason for bitcoin's price being down, it has taken a hell of a beating lately and been extremely volatile. I wouldn't assume that this news is even affecting the price.

So if the IRS ruling was good for bitcoin, what's up with losing almost 20% of its value today?

https://bitcoinaverage.com

Yeah but if you mine other coins than BTC it adds a whole extra layer of complexity, since altcoin prices are usually denominated in terms of how much BTC they are worth, NOT how much USD, adding a whole step to the process as I described.

This is the crux of it. Current rules will never allow widespread adoption. Way too much hassle for the consumer, unless you are only using BTC to make large purchases every now and then. Which is absolutely not the goal...or at least not in my mind.

You have to keep track of everything

If you mine them the price you got the BTC is 0$ + costs; if you sell them on an exchange, the selling price is what you get and if you buy something with the BTC it is the market price of that item

When you sell you use the btc you got the cheapest or the price of the oldest coins first or if you want to gamble with the irs you use a price average

More infos here from a us tax lawyer : http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1uccfz/i_am_a_tax_attorney_here_are_my_answers_to_the/

The biggest problem I see is that there is no centralized body tracking the prices of bitcoin and other coins. So who's to say whether a bitcoin or goatcoin or dumbasscoin was worth 215 satoshis or 250 satoshis or 200 satoshis at the time it was exchanged/spent/mined? And even the exchanges mostly track the prices in terms of btc value, not USD - so are people going to calculate how much xyz-coin was worth in terms of BTC at the time they mined it, then calculate how much BTC was worth in terms of USD at that same time?

One person could say well I mined 5000 abc-coins and exchanged them at a rate of 200 satoshis each on mintpal, and then check the price of BTC/USD on BTC-e.

A second person could mine the same 5000 abc-coins but exchange them on cryptsy and get 215 satoshis each, then check the price of BTC/USD on Coinbase and arrive at a completely different result.

And who is keeping track of the history of all these values? What proof do you have if the IRS audits you down the road, and joe-blow-exchange which you had used to swap many of your coins, is closed/out of business and cannot produce records?

This could get very tricky. I think it would make a lot more sense if they just said look, when you convert any coin to USD then you owe taxes on the gain based on how much fiat you got right then and there. As far as coins spent at merchants, I can't even think of a feasible way to deal with that... it's one thing if you make a large purchase, but what if you made many small purchases? Mountains of paperwork...

The long and short of this is that it's time to get yourself a copy of quick books and truly run/account for your mining operation like a real business.  This way you can fully exploit the tax code.

H@shKraker

Thanks for clearing that up. Your explanation is thorough and really helped me grasp how to calculate expenditures in BTC. However, for the average person, this is just too much. You don't have to do any of this nonsense with dollars. So, I get how bitcoin could possibly survive as some sort of alternative to gold and then therefore exist in a commodities world, buying and selling futures, things like that....but becoming a viable currency....I don't see it.

Except not all of them have USD trade pairs. What are we supposed to reference in this case as "fair market value"? The altcoins worth of Bitcoin to USD value?

The IRS allows a number of methods to determine basis.  The default option is FIFO.

So if you bought the following Bitcoins

10 BTC @ $10 ea
20 BTC @ $30 ea
50 BTC @ $60 ea
10 BTC @ $20 ea

and then you decide to sell some Bitcoins (either for fiat or in exchange for goods and services) and the exchange rate today is $50 per BTC then you simply start at the oldest coins.

If you sold 10 BTC it would be ($50-10)*10 = $400 capital gain.  
If you sold 20 BTC it would be ($50-10)*10 + ($50-20)*10 = $700 capital gain.
If you sold 70 BTC it would be ($50-10)*10 + ($50-20)*20 + ($50-$60)*50 =$500 NET capital gain.  Note the third batch is sold at a loss.

Understand capital losses would work exactly the same.  Someone who bought BTC at the peak and then today decided to spend/sell them would get a tax break on the difference in value.

There are more complex forms of computing basis by tracking each individual coin but it doesn't NEED to be done.  It is done by people who want to control their taxes (note it doesn't reduce your taxes but it allows you to control when you pay it).  Hedgefunds and major companies will almost certainly be using coin control to pick the exact coins they sell/spend in order to exactly control their tax liability.

Any company doing international sales is already doing the same thing when it comes to getting paid in Euros.  For most merchants which don't hold BTC there is never any gain.   For merchants that do, and can't do it themselves I am sure processors like bitpay will provide services to track all that and give them a report at the end of the year.

It's not a bitcoin tax. It applies to ALL cryptocurrencies.

So does this mean we'll be taxed on alternative currencies too, or only if we sell them for bitcoin?

My guess is that a bitcoin tax will only promote an increase in altcoin usage (assuming it is only btc that will be taxed). Time to buy more litecoin!

Thanks so much for clearing that up. This is why I ask questions!

Bonam,

Oh yea ... you're right, avg cost basis is another viable calc method and one absolutely SHOULD use it if that's the one that has the tax advantage.  Guess this is why my wife is the CPA in the family.

H@shkraker

Are we gonna see huge spike in prices of old usb miners (333Mh/s)? 

thank you sir.

The UK initially came out with some pretty stupid ideas about crypto taxation. After talking to folks they revised that to something more sensible. Perhaps the same will happen here.

on what exchange? btc "value" is all over the charts, especially last year.

if that's how you determine basis, well just tumble your coins by sending them to your own addresses every few days to keep the "basis" jumping about with the markets.

what's going to happen is the IRS is going to try and say everyone's basis is 0 unless you can prove you paid X for whatever which is almost impossible.

He means "First In, First Out".
In other words, the first Bitcoin you spend is considered to be the first Bitcoin you purchased, the second Bitcoin you spend is considered to be the second Bitcoin you purchased, etc.

Capital gains are based on the average cost. If you bought 1 bitcoin for $1, and 1 bitcoin for $2, you now have 2 bitcoins, that you bought for a total of $3 dollars. Therefore your average cost was $1.5 / bitcoin. So when you buy a coffee for $2 using 1 bitcoins, you should calculate that you only spent $1.5 to acquire that 1 bitcoin (on average), and therefore you made a $0.50 profit.

Most investors used the above method, called the "average cost basis method", in their accounting of capital gains for stocks and such.

You can also use the first in first out (FIFO) method. That means if you bought bitcoin for $1 first, and then later bought another bitcoin for $2, then later you bought something with 1 bitcoin, you would calculate your cost to acquire the bitcoin as $1 (since that was the first bitcoin into your wallet, it is the first bitcoin out of your wallet: hence "First in first out").

You can pick either the average cost basis method or the FIFO method in any given year, whichever is more tax advantageous for you.

Can you put that in terms an idiot like me can understand?

MinorError,

In the US cash based accounting transactions assume FIFO for the currency / cash asset on the balance sheet.

H@shKraker

The removal of uncertainty in the US was critical
Great news actually

Point taken, but this does not make using bitcoin easier or more attractive to either the consumer or the merchant. I thought bitcoin was supposed to eliminate the middleman? Seems to me it's becoming more complicated and therefore more middlemen/opportunities for middlemen will pop up. To be clear, I am NOT against the IRS taxing of bitcoin, but I think it should be treated as a foreign currency, not property.

Maybe you can clear this up for me. Let's go back to the coffee analogy. Let's say one day I buy a bitcoin for $1. The next day I but a bitcoin for $2 because the worth has doubled. I now have 2 bitcoins worth $4, one has doubled in value but the other still has the same worth as what I bought it for. If I buy a coffee for $2 with one bitcoin, how do we know which bitcoin I used to buy the coffee? They are all in the same wallet. So essentially I have two bitcoins...one of them I would owe capital gains tax of $1 if I used it to buy the $2 coffee. The other bitcoin I would owe no capital gains tax on if I used that bitcoin. How is that determined? And I'm not being a dick...I really just don't understand how that would work.

Good luck with that if you plan on ever converting them to fiat.

So? You did profit $1. You started with a bitcoin worth $1, and exchanged it for a cup of coffee worth $2. Unless your accountant is skilled at bistromathics, $2 - $1 = $1 profit.

Actually, it's impossible not to keep track of this. Your wallet software keeps track of all your transactions, so all you have to do is export it to a spreadsheet, email it to your accountant and let them figure it out. Simple (unless you're the accountant, but that's you get paid for).

I agree that bitcoins had to be brought into the civilized world eventually for them to succeed. Anyone who thought they could be used under the tax radar forever was fooling themselves...but I also see a lot of the childish mentality on here of "how will they know how many bitcoins I have ROFL LOL OMG" etc. The thing in my mind that is a huge blow here is that it's treated as property and not currency. Because wasn't the point of Bitcoin to be treated as currency eventually? If it's treated as property it renders numerous amounts of small transactions by business on a day to day basis impossible.

1. Buy mining hardware which never ROIs

2. Write off losses

3. Profit???

anyone?

they can't know how much bitcoin i have, they search for every pc? lol

also it's impossible to track miner

我擦 我什么也看不懂

It's completely different because cash and credit are valued as currency and not subject to capital gains. So this is no different than going into a store and paying with $2 worth of google stock. It holds serious and very confusing repercussions for both the merchant and the consumer. Also, it renders bitcoin as a currency useless. The only reason you buy stock is that so you can someday trade that stock in for fiat currency, preferably at a profit. You don't buy stock so that you can trade it for goods and services.

Also, as a consumer, if you have 2 bitcoins in your wallet one day (let's say for simplicity sake you bought the. For $1 each) and then you go buy a cup of coffee for $2,  but at the time of your purchase, your bitcoins doubled in value and are now worth $4 so you only need to spend one of them. Now in the eyes the government you just PROFITED $1. For now at least, it is completely not feasible for any consumer to keep track of this. And you can say yes it's impossible to keep track of AND enforce....but the tax manwillnot give a fuck if they audit you. "You didn't keep diligent records on your bitcoin purchases and expenditures....fuck you, pay me."

I feel you on this, however I feel that many more merchants (some of them big preferably) would adopt BTC. This piece of news would encourage some that up till now were on the fence.

I am not a US taxpayer, and just speculating that it could happen to me.

If bitcoin is property, then presumably I paid for electricity and hardware in order
to obtain the goods, in a manner similar to the process of barter?

And that should be offset against the current value of the coins I mine? Otherwise
there would be no point in mining. IANAL BTW. 

will this rule drive investors out of US？it rises the cost of a trade with bitcoin，not a good idea at all

I am no economics major either, but just common sense tells me how is it different if the customer is paying the coffee shop $2 cash or credit card payment for the same cup of coffee?  The coffee shop point-of-sale system still record it as a $2 income if it is paid via Bitcoin.

look at blockchain info.  it will tell you  what the transaction was worth in usd at the time you made it.


   This is really good news and or complete death of alt coins.    Nothing in between.   Hoping it is good news.  I have an accounting degree and I did my 2012 taxes based on just about exactly the rules they picked today.   Pretty much the only correct method to do them.  The business articles that mention this as a blow to miners are written for people that have no training in finance/accounting/tax law.  All necessary evils in a civilized world.

 If all those that believed mining was going to be under the radar from the tax man are a big factor in mining this will be a big blow against mining and coins.  I am more of it is a sellout and partnership with the 'man' so to speak.  That should be good for price. But we shall see.

For miners... just do it as a business and always post an operating loss. So easy. Buy more equipment lol.

If you wanna do it REALLY right take a look at http://www.ifrs.org/Use-around-the-world/Education/Recent-publications/Documents/Module30_Version_2011_09.pdf and to a lesser extent http://www.pwc.com/en_us/us/ifrs-tax-issues/assets/currency-gains-losses-ifrs.pdf .  These PDFs are IFRS based BUT the methods and practices apply almost exactly the same for GAAP based accounting.

H@shKraker

I like the way you guys are seeing things. I guess it's just the pessimist in me being negative Nancy...I really hope you're right. On a more selfish note, how should I, as a small time miner, keep track of my daily payouts? I'm open to any and all suggestions.

I, on the other hand, see this removal of uncertainty as a significant positive for businesses to accepts BTC as payment.  You see, now where codification for its use and existence.  It's only a matter of time until quickbooks integrates with bitpay integrates with TurboTax.  You see, they want to take as much revenue as they can and now that there codification there's no reason to not allow service providers to accept payment (in whatever fiat) for providing small business accounting integrations.  Simple as pie really now that the IRS is going to include rules in the tax code..

H@shKraker

A lot of companies that are starting to accept Bitcoins use services like BitPay, where the Bitcoins received are immediately converted to fiat currency and put into the account of the business. The merchant has no problem under this scenario. From the merchant's perspective, he is being paid his local currency. This would not deter merchants at all.

It will be very tough to enforce for the consumer, but it will be just as hard for a business like Overstock (that needs to keep diligent records) to remain above board on the tax code if they are accepting bitcoins as payment. Not only that, but it makes accepting bitcoins a major liability for any business that does numerous transactions and doesn't want the IRS crawling through their books. This seems to be the US government saying, fuck bitcoins, without having to say fuck bitcoins. I would not be surprised if you see the few major company's that do accept bitcoins stop doing so in the coming weeks. I hope I'm wrong, but that's the way I see it.

This seems impossible to enforce for the consumer.  If I buy $700 worth of stuff on Overstock in BTC that I paid $500 for how is the IRS going to track this or even know?  Am I just on the honor system to report it?  Good luck with that...

What does this mean regarding minor miner? How am I supposed to file self-employment taxes?

Ahhhh .... another way to ask your question is "Why do we need CPAs?" .... oh yea .... this is why we need CPAs.

H@shKraker

I don't see how this is good news. I am not trying to troll here, I was just talking to people the other day and telling them my arguments for Bitcoin being around for a very very long time. I was really excited about Bitcoin.

But this is a deathblow. How will businesses keep track of what a coin was worth when they exchanged a good or service for said bitcoin? This Bloomberg article puts it perfectly

"Today’s IRS guidance will provide certainty for Bitcoin investors, along with income-tax liability that wasn’t specified before. Purchasing a $2 cup of coffee with Bitcoins bought for $1 would trigger $1 in capital gains for the coffee drinker and $2 of gross income for the coffee shop. "

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/bitcoin-is-property-not-currency-in-tax-system-irs-says.html

I am no economics major, but can someone please explain to me how this is a positive bit of news? I was hoping Bitcoin would be handled as a currency, or at least a foreign currency...this pretty much means any business trying to adopt bitcoin will have to think long and hard about the implications.

Yea, I hate taxes too BUT this does remove a measure of uncertainty (and thus some risk).  All in all I think it's a good thing to have some regulatory risk/uncertainty removed from the picture.

H@shKraker

I hate taxes ...

Welp, finally a little stable news from the US GubMint -> http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/25/irs-says-bitcoin-is-property/6873569/ .  I'd say this is fairly good news as it provides legitimate taxation guidelines for US Citizens and partially legitimizes the BTC economic velocity.  What you folks think?

H@shKraker