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"Bitcoin raises untested legal concerns related to securities law, the Stamp Payments Act, tax evasion, consumer protection and money laundering, among others."
by pash 15y ago
"Bitcoin raises untested legal concerns related to securities law, the Stamp Payments Act, tax evasion, consumer protection and money laundering, among others."
No it doesn't. Accepting donations in Bitcoins is no different than accepting cash yen or euro or Zimbabwean dollars. You value them at the market's dollar rate for tax purposes. The other objections are thorough nonsense as far as I can tell.
"We don't want to mislead our donors."
You just did. You took their Bitcoins and did something with them wholly different from what you said you were going to with them. (The EFF says it donated them to the Bitcoin Faucet.) The honest thing, and what your donors expected, would have been to convert them to dollars (or whatever) and spend them as you would any other donation, or to purchase goods and services from the Bitcoin economy to promote your mission.
"People were misconstruing our acceptance of Bitcoins as an endorsement of Bitcoin."
You were endorsing Bitcoin by using it. Just say, "Bitcoin's the Wild West. We're scared to take them." And leave it at that.
- exit 15y agoso do i value them at the market rate when i received them, or when i'm paying taxes, or do i only pay capital gains taxes on them when (haha, if) i sell them?
- pash 15y agoIf you're in the United States, "Use the exchange rate prevailing when you receive, pay, or accrue the item." http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=130524,00.html http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=130524,00....
- martincmartin 15y ago"Bitcoin raises untested legal concerns related to securities law, the Stamp Payments Act, tax evasion, consumer protection and money laundering, among others." No it doesn't. Accepting donations in Bitcoins is no different than accepting cash yen or euro or Zimbabwean dollars. You value them at the market's dollar rate for tax purposes. The other objections are thorough nonsense as far as I can tell. The EFF is full of lawyers who, presumably, have studies these parts of law at least a little, even if none of them have specialized in it. What's your justification for calling their concerns "thorough nonsense"?
- dreiklang 15y agoBitCoin sounds like the world's craziest bar exam question. (Which generally involve something like this: http://abovethelaw.com/2010/07/a-bar-exam-parody-hypothetical-courtesy-of-elizabeth-wurtzel/ http://abovethelaw.com/2010/07/a-bar-exam-parody-hypothetica...)
- pash 15y ago>What's your justification for calling their concerns "thorough nonsense"? 1) Currencies are not securities, and this is plain in definitions of the Securities Act of 1933 and following; 2) The Stamp Payments Act was enacted at the end of the wildcat banking period to end the circulation of small-denomination (less than one dollar) money by bank issuers. It clearly relates to dollar-denominated coins and notes. Bitcoin is a separate currency and has no physical form and no fixed denominations; regardless, the law applies no more to the use of Bitcoin than to the use of any other currency in the United States, which is not controversial. 3) I already explained the tax situation; 4) How is 'consumer protection' a legal issue related to the currency of denomination of a charitable donation? 5) Bitcoin could certainly abet money laundering, but the anti-money-laundering laws of the United States, in addition to regulating the conduct of financial institutions, apply almost exclusively to those who knowingly engage or intend to engage in transactions involving the proceeds of illegal activity. Bitcoin raises a couple of interesting questions related to its fundamental electronic form, but the objections given are just nonsense.
- scott_s 15y agoSeeing as how the whole point of bitcoin is that it's unprecedented, I think it necessarily creates untested legal concerns.