3 ms·
I get why they would do that, to curb speculation, but it seems backwards to my intuition. Just converting money back and forth should not be taxable. And if I
by captainmuon 4y ago
I get why they would do that, to curb speculation, but it seems backwards to my intuition.
Just converting money back and forth should not be taxable. And if I make an advantageous trade with somebody, and a day later I make a disadvantageous trade, it should be a no-op. If you take it to the extreme, a market maker or an algorithmic trader makes thousands of trades a day, creating liquidity and determining prices, and they would be taxed a lot.
My gut feeling is instead you should tax people who use it as an investment and their long term gains.
- lern_too_spel 4y agoYou are taxed on net capital gains, not only on trades that were for a gain.
- cyphar 4y agoI don't know if Germany has capital loss discounts, but in Australia at least, a capital loss can be used to offset a gain (or a future gain). So the fact that you can make a capital loss doesn't make taxing profits ridiculous. Forex trading is the most analogous thing to crypto trading, and it is taxed in a very similar way. And algorithmic traders absolutely are required to pay taxes on their profits. Encouraging people to not hold assets long-term (by making short profits tax-free as you suggest) is not a good idea -- it encourages speculation and speculative bubbles. Most countries treat long-term capital gains more favourably through tax discounts for that reason.
- mbeex 4y ago> a capital loss can be used to offset a gain Same in Germany. It's a bit more complicated, because you can only offset certain asset classes against each other. Most prominently, losses in individual shares cannot be reconciled by gains in ETFs.
- Hendrikto 4y agoThe number of trades plays no role in how much taxes you have to pay. Your net gains do. Thus, winnings do in fact get canceled out by losses.