Just got my Australian Crypto Tax notice guys *sigh*

The day i’ve been dreading has arrived. Just got a notice from the tax man, apparently I need to tell them about any and all of my crypto assets, what i do with them, when I bought and sold them, any gains losses and the thing I did not suspect was they also want to know about contributing to networks such as in being a node…

I am happy to pay taxes fr things such as hospitals, roads etc or where the government has had a fairly direct impact and assisted me in the money I have made from a venture, but with crypto theyve literally done nothing for me to be able to invest and trade in it, why on Earth should I have to pay them. This is highway robbery.

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Welcome to planet earth.

They treat all gains as capital gains for that tax, but if your seen as contributing resources and getting paid some governments (UK) then they are aiming to make that income and increase your income tax bill. I feel the same as you fair is fair, but I went through this and still am and I can tell you it’s a horrible messy process with slack rules/guidelines that different tax folk will interoperate in different ways. I am wary, given the current gov funding that these are interpreted in unfair ways.
This is our governments saying thank’s for bringing in wealth to the country but we insist you tell us everything so we can flail you alive. These are days where I question honesty as a good policy and that’s not good for anyone.

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I just had the same conversation with my wife. If I owed them money they’d send me a bill. It seems to me they want me to fess up and show them all my crypto doings because they’re too stupid to work it out themselves. If you’re reading this Australian government; my memory is no good maybe I had crypto, maybe I didn’t, maybe I gambled it all away, I can’t remember sorry.

The other interesting thing is that I have a close friend that has been trading forex for a few years he’s never received one of those letters which tells me either he’s an anomaly or the government gives zero fucks about forex becsuse it knowd all about it and Insteas they want all the information they can get their grubby hands on regarding crypto becsuse it is such a new thing and potentially a threat.

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You must have done well because they don’t usually chase small fry. Don’t put your head in the sand because they have some draconian powers, including one to just make up an assessment, which you have to prove wrong. Of course, to prove it wrong you have to tell them what’s right, with backup evidence. Good luck

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Purely a money gathering exercise. They would tax the air you breath, and the sun that shines on your face if they could.

It’s really designed to prop up and keep the local currency legitimate.
The only reason a local currency has value, is because it is enforced by physical violence. For example if you don’t pay tax in the local currency you can be forcefully imprisoned.

Crypto is a competing currency and money system, it is a threat.
Bartering is also a threat, if we removed money and started exchanging services they couldn’t tax that either. I fix your plumbing, and you fix my website code. Tax that!

There are tax free physical gold coins though - whats the loop hole there?

Do they accept payment in crypto? That would be more manageable. Price volatility can wipe you out, one month you could have a value of $10,000 the next $0.10, and still be in debt for the tax on the previous month.

If they don’t understand how to, or accept payment in crypto, they shouldn’t be taxing it.

The tax system could make someone homeless just because they are farming a coin that suddenly spikes and then drops in value - imagine if your teenage kids computer activity is the reason why you become homeless.

On the bright side, being an investor in maidsafe… and the ONLY coin I own…
I’ve been making consistent losses. :rofl: :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

And very unfortunately :wink: it looks like the Maidsafecoin asset is going to be removed and will no longer exist on exchanges soon (on launch) - and my crypto keys are going to become useless and values at zero.

The progress on the project, the toys being made and given to us, the bright future more than makes up for the general short term financial pain. :slight_smile:

Tax on homes is another one I hate… some other entity increases the valuation of my home, each year - and on that valuation increases my tax. My house hasn’t increased in size - its no different to when I bought it, yet, by a questionable bank loan industry - prices are inflated. People can’t afford to outright by a house, so the loans make no real difference in the competition between us all. The populations takes the bait, enslaves themselves in more debt than the Jones family down the road so in the end, the bank and the tax man are playing a game - increasing the tax revenue and profits, while the actual physical value and utility of my home stays the same. The game is rigged.

And woe betide you if you have some level of intelligence to escape the game by outsmarting the lazy bankers by investing in a new technology - they will make up a law in thin air, and take that away from you too.

The safenetwork can not come soon enough.

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sorry for your consistent losses. I hope it will get better.

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Thank you, but…

Oh I don’t mind at all!

I’m happy to have a seat at the table, at any initial buy in. ( Am a buy and hold guy)

The ride itself over the years has been worth the fee. :slight_smile:

… and I do have some tokens too!

I do believe it will get better. The toys are just amazing.
Playing with the vaults from home, and working with safe-cli really gets your heart racing.

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how do you feel after using vault toy? is it fast enough?

In New Zealand they apparently have zero capital gains taxes. I may have to head over rent a cheap caravan, claim residency and travel between the two then liquidate my crypto over there and tell the Oz gov to take a hike. Do we have any kiwi’s in the house? I trust my own NZ friends as far as I can throw them :joy:

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My cousin emigrated to NZ - came back within 2 years. "They only think about 4 things, rugby, horse-racing, sheep and wife-swapping and they keep getting the last two confused " was his comment…

I thought he was being a little harsh …

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I was born and raised in the U.S., but have dual citizenship cause Mum is Australian. Hadn’t looked into taxes over there, yet, but I was hoping it would be a good alternative. Apparently not. :unamused:

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No point if you have realised capital gains whilst being a resident of Australia

You can pretty much legally avoid federal, and social security taxes by becoming a resident of Puerto Rico. They have low taxes and incentives for crypto. You have to spend half the year there. You might look into it.

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Interesting. Thanks.

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My wife is an accountant here in the UK and this has come up a number of times with her work. In the UK apparently it can be a bit of a grey area. If you are just playing/gambling and it isn’t a frequent activity then they aren’t interested. If on the other hand you are a ‘trader’ who is obviously looking at it every day and making regular/freguent transactions then you are in business and will be taxed. The devil in the detail is what defines words like ‘regular/frequent’. As is usual in these things then it is best to be firmly one side of the grey or the other!

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100% it’s grey, however they do now want every trade made and a calculation of the trade in £ which means sourcing an actual value for each type of crypto at that time. It’s a disaster really. So disposal to hmrc in crypto is now every use of crypto except only changing wallets for yourself, then though you need to account for fees. So hell on earth.
It would be better to work like shares, where you calculate the gain at the end, i.e. after trade X for Y for Z then at disposal (sell for £ or goods/service etc.) you pay CGT. hmrc call this a currency and treat it as a property. I suspect they will have to change this as it’s hell to report and must be 10X worse to audit.

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In Australia, there is a semi exchange Coinspot that I use. It produces a comprehensive report of your transactions, by financial year, for no extra cost. Saves a lot of angst.

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It’d be possible by snapshoting the MAID balances at a given Bitcoin block. There was good discussion about it here

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