At 06:17 AM 7/30/96 -0500, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
Hi
Suppose that digital cash becomes easy enough to use and becomes the mainstream medium in most [or at least many] economic transactions.
The question is, how can the government TECHNICALLY collect taxes? I do not mean to start `libertarianism vs. socialism' discussion, I am more interested in the technical aspects of tax collection when transfers of money are protected by strong crypto..
Let's say, maybe this tax would work: every time someone verifies that a piece of digital cash is valid, s/he has to pay the government a little percentage of the amount. Since digital banks are easier to control than other participants of the market, this kind of tax legislation is easier to enforce.
If, for every $1 somebody paid in taxes, he instead (or, in addition to) paid 10 cents to a fund to eliminate the tax collectors, at the end of that year he wouldn't be paying any taxes anymore. That's why AP will work so well. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com