“Fiscally conservative” Republicans want to raise taxes on workers making less than $406,750

I first found out about Bitcoin in late 2010. In 2012, I had done some mining equipment reselling and made minor gains here and there but mostly losses. With regards to the coin on my 2013 taxes, it was purchased by my business as inventory when the price was at $15/coin and sold when the price went over $40/coin, $100/coin, and the bulk of it sold again at $750/coin later in the same year.

I was smart enough to see that we were seeing a bubble foaming again and it helped immensely I'd been following it regularly for the years leading up to that point with the selling and reselling of equipment. Interest in the small currency was ballooning and I saw this as hugely bullish not just on the mining side of buying and reselling equipment, but also for the coin itself. I took action swiftly and knew the risks but also the potential for rewards. It was not a decision I made lightly, but I did know that I could bear a significant risk to make the most of it and since it was my businesses money, if it all went kaput I would have had to just close the business.

That said, because they were business assets and held less than a year, my accountant said it was just seen as regular business income. I believe that put me in one of the higher rates (or so my accountant said). Combined with my regular job my "salary" was put into six figures with the gains from the sales, so I ended up owing quite a bit on taxes by the end of the year. What didn't get spent on taxes ended up being my profit.

For what it is worth, last week I bought a little bit again for the first time since early 2013. I think it could still retest the lows seen two months ago, but it's a risk/reward sort of investment and even those are worth a tiny amount. Though what used to be defined as "a tiny amount" has changed for me the last few years. Before I would drop $200-500 into a risky asset without thinking much about it. Now I'm able to drop ~$2k on a high risk/high reward asset.

You're absolutely right that you don't hear many Bitcoin success stories, but they do exist. Not everyone is willing to put a target on their back, to be honest. I kind of already have. I regularly get emails from Reddit asking if I attempted to reset my password, for example. It's the price I pay, I suppose. Fortunately my user account here has absolutely nothing in common with my exchange accounts or cold storage passwords or, well, anything for that matter.

I also think you'd be surprised at the number of folks who made money that actually did pay their taxes. It's not really possible to "hide" the fact you are moving anything more than $10k, and FinCen will get you on "structuring" if you try to stay under $10k. The US financial system really is an abysmal archaic entity that drastically needs changed, IMHO. Bitcoin can help with that, but we're going to have to see some changes made in the minds of regulators as well. I think it'd be better if the people hunting "bad guys" ie, drug lords, arms dealers, etc. actually had to do gumshoe detective work rather than have some automated system that pulls and centralizes all financial transaction data of every American. I also kind of wish I didn't have to "prove" I am innocent when moving $10k or more via bank-to-bank transfer. I think they should up the limits for their "structuring tests" too. $10k is too low, it should be $50k or more.

Also, they could probably start getting the support of the actual public if they started throwing the guys doing $5 million worth of fraud in the same prison as the guys doing $5k worth. It really bugs me that we have one criminal system for the rich and one for the middle class and poor right now. It's really hard to have any sort of sympathy for the government when they are willing to let guys making seven figures completely ignore taxes and regulations.

/r/Libertarian Thread Link - lp.org