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No, of course a mistaken payment isn't a gift, and there's an appropriate mechanism for retrieving mistaken payments through the civil courts (if necessary). B
by NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
No, of course a mistaken payment isn't a gift, and there's an appropriate mechanism for retrieving mistaken payments through the civil courts (if necessary).
But a mistaken payment is also not income and threatening willfully to mis-file a 1099 is completely inappropriate.
If they want to get the mistaken payments back, they can ask nicely, they can send threatening letters, they can sue in court; but they can't use the IRS as their cat's paw because the only tax situation that fits the facts here is gift.
- mindslight 5y agoIt's not a gift - if you take the position that a smart contract is a binding contract, then the payment is pursuant to a contract that itself was entered into for full consideration. Nobody knew how the contract would develop, but the same applies for many contracts - eg options trading. If one wants to claim it's a mistaken payment, then the recipient needs to return the tokens - their legal ownership was never conveyed. Additionally, you can tell the intent is not that of a gift because the transferrer immediately wants it back.
- porknubbins 5y agoBut does anyone take the position that a smart contract is a binding contract? I believe even Nick Szabo regrets coining the term since its just a program that can transfer value so including it term “contract” is misleading.
- mindslight 5y agoTo me, that's the entire point of them - a single source of truth in an extremely formal language.