Topic: What percentage of people in the USA do you think haven't paid taxes on trades? (Read 277 times)

I believe USA have got a well planned system that clearly calculate the tax based on each and every transaction. Even in my country things were getting better and are streamlined to make every citizen pay tax. Even the exemption list on taxation have been limited. Tax filing service providers help people to lower the tax, but at times these things make the person when there is no proper document to support.

So it's like basically the guard adds up what you owe instead of the cashier. It's like they place it like that literally in order to trip people up. It's like deliberately knowing most people aren't going to know, so lets lay a trap for them.

From my understanding in countries in Europe, they send a tax bill for things they know about, but they might not know about everything, so that's when they expect you to inform them. And realizing keeping track of every trade is nearly impossible if you're doing thousands of trades in a year, it's much more fair and they just say okay to keep it simple, how about you just pay taxes on a capital gain that you make when you cash out?  That makes it so simple a young school kid could figure that out. The US has it in such a way that you can end up owing more money than you currently have.

You did some trades in 2021 and made a technical on paper "profit" so lets say you started with 1000 dollars, traded up to 5000 dollars worth of "profit" in 2021. Then next year comes and alt coins dumped now you have less than 10 dollars worth because you did NOT cash out, however.... the blood thirsty (metaphorically equivalent to vampires who prey on little children) known as the IRS... demands you pay nearly 2000 dollars because you made some trades in 2021. But you have much less money than you started with. Citing short term cap gain give us 40% of 4000 dollars.

This is insanity. It's easy for most people to not even think they would owe taxes since they have a huge loss. But there is a reason the IRS is buying guns. I guess they need them to come after people who don't have the money to give them.

They are weird. Think about it. If they know how much you owe, why not just hand you a bill with that amount? Also they realize most people get confused BECAUSE of the weird laws. Since in most countries you dont get taxed for every little trade, where as in the US you do. Of course tons of people aren't going to know what they owe. And afaik tax professionals cost a lot of money. Lets say you technically owe a few hundred or maybe even a thousand dollars on trades in a year. A tax professional is going to cost you nearly a thousand dollars (last I checked) to sift through the tens of thousands of little micro trades you've done. Unless you have an automatic software (not possible from just wallet trade functions) then you're going to have to manually calculate all that. Which could take a long time, maybe days or weeks in some cases and better not fuck up. So you're paying the tax professional more than what you owe in taxes.

I think many people, wouldn't mind paying taxes if they just TOLD you what you owed. It's like they know, but hope you are going to trip up and accidentally calculate incorrectly.


Hell, if the IRS wanted to tax trades, I could see if it's like a really large amount and you're trading for a stable coin to just hold, and you made so much that you would owe a few thousand dollars or more in taxes. But trades in which you literally would only owe a few cents? really? This is absolute insanity you have to calculate all of this if its thousands of trades. I think this is why most nations use fair common sense and just say okay, whatever you cash out, pay the gain you made on that. Be it 15% 30% or even at 50% it's more fair than wanting you to keep track of every single trade from one crypto to another.

Especially when you're literally only doing a trade to move from one wallet to another.


THEN on top of the fact that you could end up losing out.

So having a case in which lets say you traded in 2021, you technically owe money, then 2022 happens and you lose 80 to 90% of your wealth. Now you own more money than you even have! This is the most unfair unjust system in existence. Give us your blood and cut your right arm off to feed us is basically the IRS. Whoever creates these laws are either evil or really uneducated about crypto to the point of being extremely stupid to make laws on things they don't understand.

I believe most people who aren't paying taxes on crypto are not paying simply because they do not know they need to. Not that they're trying to evade.

How about you read more on the tax laws instead of saying they are weird? They know how to compute the correct capital gains taxes because there is a guide to follow and that guide is public for everyone to see. I bet professionals in the field of taxation knows the rules as well so you may tap on their skills if you find taxation too confusing.

I don't live in the US and in the EU we don't have to report any crypto - crypto trades. Only cashing out is a taxable event and not in every country. I've never reported anything crypto relate. I want to stay as much under the radar as I can, so I mainly trade for fiat in a physical exchange.

That said, probably 50% of Americans don't know they should report crypto-crypto trades or know but don't do it anyway. If this was allowed in my country and then they decided it isn't anymore and I should come clean about my crypto, I wouldn't do it. I'd rather not trade at all then show my wallets to those vultures.

IRS is a weird one like that. They make you pay the taxes so that you would pay the right price and not tell you how much you owe, and if you pay the wrong amount then they will collect it with some interest. Meaning, they already knew how much you should have paid, if they didn't know at all then you could have paid 100 bucks instead of 1k dollars and they wouldn't know and you would get away with it.

But since they know, they can charge you with wrong amount, but if they knew, then why didn't they gave you the chance to actually learn what amount it is and then pay it? Why make people pay the amount they think they owe, instead of letting them take a guess?

I'm thinking well over the highest threshold defined in OP poll, which was 60%.  If it was really low, then the IRS wouldn't be making such a big deal of things and the fact they have and are using software to find things out tells also tells me otherwise.

IMO, I think it is pretty hard to establish the percentage that you mean because we don't have the complete data of the people who did a crypto trade or swap in the US, but we can supply any estimate based on our own opinion, and not base on actual counts, since the US is an advance country in any means I presume that the effectivity of implementing tax collection system is also very high thats why I can say that it is only a small percentage let say as two percent who knows if it was really the right estimate. 

Thanks for sharing, I was not aware of such distinctions in how taxes are calculated and what someone can be taxed.
I remember reading somewhere that in real estate you can reinvest (flip a property which has appreciated in value, for another) and you would not be taxed on it. Up until you sell the property for fiat; cashing out.
Not sure if that's still applicable and why crypto would be exempt.

I do not know why the Americans always have to over complicate things.     In my country, Capital Gains on Crypto currencies are simple... you calculate how much money you spend on buying Crypto in one year.... and you subtract the selling price from that. That shows you the gain that you are supposed to pay taxes on. 

We also have some exemptions that you subtract from the total that you earned from Crypto trading. It is really not a difficult calculation to make... and it takes like 1 hour to finalize the whole assessment. 

Who is checking to see what trades you make and if what you declare is correct?

Seems a bit strange that you can declare anything but then I imagine they then
go and check that you are making a proper declaration.

So for that reason I'm guessing over 60% have not paid taxes  (I know I havent paid
1 cent in all the years buying, trading and selling, but dont tell anyone ....)

Yes, There is a tax and not only there, but there is a tax in the whole world on cryptocurrency, if they do not do it, then at some point of time, Government will know and I do not know about other countries but in India, the tax is 30% and the rules are strict If you are earning money by trading then you will have to pay tax, if you do not pay, then there may be a case here.

Taxes differ from one country to another. We have no clear income tax or detail in the tax system, but due to the budget's dependence on oil to a large extent, the reliance of budgets on taxes will make them more stringent and strict, but over time you will learn how to reduce your taxes significantly.

As for the percentage, I don't know, but I'm not from the United States, and I knew the details of the tax system from here, so I expect that with a little research, most people will know that.

I don't think there are lots of people there who will gonna evade their taxes because they can be tracked and will face the consequences unless they know how to hide it from the government using their tricks. But normal people, will abide by the laws and don't commit something like that. especially when it comes to bitcoins where all eyes are on you if they find out you were hiding some huge amount of it and you are lucky if they don't get it forcefully from you.

Here is the issue. BTC and crypto mining could be pushed to do this

https://www.nj.com/news/2019/06/six-flags-is-now-one-of-worlds-1st-solar-powered-theme-parks-more-clean-energy-is-on-the-way.html





or this




When the 2017 bill was passed it was a step away from solar and towards coal

BTC in 2012   264 kwatts in 1 day could mine 7 coins

BTC in 2022  1,125,000 Kwatts to mine the same 7 coins.

Coins became costly and greedy shortsighted people acted to alter the taxing system to grab from the industry.

Rather than properly manage the asset and use it to get a lot more parking lots like the photo above.

I don't know about the US but in other parts of the world, people usually do not pay taxes on crypto because the funds/crypto kept in exchanges and wallets are not disclosed to the governments. Even if there is a strict law of taxes, people would pay tax only on the money which they converted into fiat money and also through the banking channel.

It's quite the other way around, you go with a bag full of products, you tell the cashier that is worth 100$ you pay and you go on your way. If the guards stop you and you have 1000$ worth of merchandise they call the police.


No, the US is not the only one that taxes this, and in every country in Europe that I know of you have to come with the amount you owe first.


https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/virtual-currencies

Coming from an IRS family.

Mom worked there 24 years then retired
Wife worked there 33 years then retired
I worked there a year then left

I voted 15%

I report every trade.
In fact I occasionally do losing trades on purpose to balance my cap gains out.

I use coinbase and report.

Why do I do this?

Hmm wife's pension  is federal.
My pensions's are federal.

Our pensions are worth quite a bit.

To buy  the pensions we have at 66+65 years old including the medical would cost over a million bucks.

Lots of actuary math involved to get the 2 million value.

But here goes if you collect 50k in pensions for 20 years that is 1 million

Our ages suggest we would live for 20 more years.

we collect over 50k in pensions and our medical insurance would cost us 1200 a month which is about 300k over next 20 years.

So to not report trades and risk fucking the pensions up is not worth it.

BTW the like kind rule was crushed by Donald Trump and co.

All like kind trades have been removed other than real estate .

Under Obama you could do trade of stock to stock no reporting
and you could do trade of crypto to crypto no reporting.

So if you are USA voter contact your congress man and ask for a definite answer for repealing Donald trump's like kind limits for trading stocks and crypto.

I believe the act came into effect in 2018 but I am 65 and don't remember a lot of shit.

I would put it above 60%. For now.

With a lot of the 'Big Name' exchanges that are US based they are going to be providing full tax info to the IRS starting next year so there will be a lot of people who will have to start giving up that information and paying.

Will probably crush the markets for a bit before everyone adjusts to the new normal.
How many will keep trading, how many will move to other unregulated exchanges will be interesting to see.

-Dave