--On Sunday, January 26, 2014 2:22 PM -0500 dan@geer.org wrote:
| Obvious solutions: | | * declare BTC to be presumptively evidence of drug dealing or trading CP | - possession of weakly-related artefacts being declared as sufficient | evidence has, IIRC, been ruled legal in NY in the case of a law which | made possession by a woman of multiple condoms evidence of prostitution. | * require BTC holdings to be declared to the tax authorities, and make | explicit that whatever the local tax on investment holdings applies to | BTC (I think the current question is not whether growth in value of BTC | is taxable but what kind of investment it should be taxed as). | * snarl up BTC exchanges with the same reporting requirements as normal | banks and trading houses, even though the much smaller scale will make | that extremely difficult to comply with. | * rule that BTC miners are engaging in banking by building up the record | in the block chain, and make them all responsible for reporting the | transactions they process
We have proof by demonstration of item #2 in the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission driving prediction markets like Intrade and Banc de Binary out of business.
[Those of us who see a regulation as a tax-by-another-name are thus again reminded that the power to tax is the power to destroy.]
The power to tax is the power to destroy the enemies of the Free Democratic Judeo-Christian Western Culture and Civilization. Without the power to tax, the government would lack the means to destroy the enemies of Free World.
--dan