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17 sats \ 7 replies \ @Catcher 27 May \ parent \ on: Square terminals to accept lightning bitcoin
They can start with Europe;)
Are capital gains on Bitcoin not taxed in Europe?
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So they 'allow' small traders to operate under the radar but any larger retailer is going to have accountants/tax consultants who will advise that while the retailer itself may not be breaching tax law, as long as they convert immediately upon transaction to fiat, their customers mostly will not likely be recording, reporting and paying the tax due on their purchases.
The retailer thus could risk being identified as enabling/association with tax evasion by its customers.
Most large retailers will run a mile from taking such a risk of association with tax code violation.
The whole thing is slyly intended to 'discourage' (obstruct) adoption by retailers by making legally compliant retail level MoE use of Bitcoin effectively impractical.
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I wonder how it’s aligned with recent announcement that Spar accepts bitcoin now. Also this logic could also be used for any cash transaction, but it’s not. if I’m accepting cash, it’s not my responsibility to check if you have paid taxes on this cash or you just didn’t declare you cash earnings
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Cash is legal tender. Bitcoin is not.
Use of cash for payment implies zero capital gain tax obligations upon the spender or the receiver.
A retailer cannot reasonably be expected to check the source of cash used by customers but a retailer could, arguably, be expected to know that most Bitcoin customers will not be complying with the absurdly onerous tax recording and reporting obligations that apply to Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is effectively impractical for legal use as a MoE- this is the tax law in almost all jurisdictions where it is not explicitly outlawed.
Spar is taking an apparently bold stand and is almost certainly instantly converting sats received to fiat to avoid its own direct CGT reporting requirements but does risk unwelcome attention from tax authorities. If their acceptance of Bitcoin fails to deliver worthwhile increased sales they might quietly drop the offering.
Over time several retailers have briefly accepted Bitcoin to then drop it as insufficient additional turnover results.
'Oh look Spar accept Bitcoin- we live in a liberal and free market democracy'
No, MoE adoption has been successfully obstructed and few if any of the isolated cases of large adoptees of acceptance have enjoyed sufficient support to sustain their acceptance.
The sly obstruction of Bitcoin MoE is being done subtly to prevent mass scale adoption that would be a threat to fiat- so far this has been largely successful, and no ugly outright ban has been required.
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'm definitely not an expert, but I’ve been wondering how this currently works when it comes to coupons, points, and similar systems that aren’t legal tender. For example, a friend of mine used to receive Sodexo coupons from his employer, but he didn’t use them himself. Instead, he sold them to me at 70% of their face value. So, I was essentially buying a €100 coupon for €70 and then using it to pay €100 at Aldi or at a restaurant.
As far as I understand, the restaurant was treating the coupon at face value, converting it 1:1 into euros. Now, compare that to Bitcoin: if I buy Bitcoin at €70,000 and then spend it as if it were worth €100,000, with the restaurant instantly converting it to fiat, it’s quite similar.
No one really cares where the coupon—or in this case, the Bitcoin—came from. They just accept it at face value. And unless I voluntarily declare it in my tax return, there’s basically no way to track it. And in most of Europe, doing a tax return isn’t mandatory.... And if they make in mandatory / cumbersome to use - most people just won't use it,