Australia Promises To Remove Tax On Bitcoin, Support FinTech Innovation (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Australian government has announced that Bitcoin and other digital currencies would no longer be subject to Goods and Services Tax, and regulations would become more lenient to support startups and entrepreneurs in the country. Treasurer Scott Morrison noted in a detailed policy statement that various new law proposals would see GST removed on Bitcoin, restrictions and tax barriers eased for venture capital investors, and a stronger focus on crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending. The release detailed that reform in the area is crucial to 'assist Australia becoming a leading market for FinTech innovation in Asia.'

Comments

More stupidity

[BarbaraHudson]

Bitcoin is not money. China controls the majority of bitcoin mining. This is not smart.

Re:More stupidity

[codebonobo]

Miners play a singular role among others in controlling the network. While mining centralization is a somewhat valid concern there is good evidence this trend will reverse itself and the fears are often overblown because Full nodes, exchanges, developers, and merchants all share responsibilities and power over the miners. Bitcoin represents the longest Valid proof of work chain where only economic full nodes determine what is valid and what isn't thus the users running full nodes hold the ultimate power and the miners are serving them.

Re:More stupidity

[PopeRatzo]

No less money then any of the rest of the fiat monopoly money people slave away for.

You don't know what a fiat currency is, do you?

Re:More stupidity

[codebonobo]

You are correct that we shouldn't conflate the two. Fiat money is a currency established by state decree and insured by the social contract imposed without agreement upon unborn taxpayers. Bitcoin isn't insured by the unborn tax payers within a geographic region but an international currency insured by the user base who voluntarily adopt it and can choose to leave or fork the currency into their own at any given moment. The two are radically different.

Re:More stupidity

[ixuzus]

If I had a hand in creating some of the web services the Australian government uses I would definitely be fleeing the country too.

Re:stolen

[Ol Olsoc]

must be fun to be a journalist and copy-paste news articles from Australia's ABC on your site and pose as a legitimate journalism, can we have the source of these copy-paste hack jobs articles instead? please mods....

Ummm, that's how this slashdot thing works. You gotta be a first timer.

Digital currency

[Errol backfiring]

Aren't most of the currencies digital today? You are almost automatically seen as a terrorist if you pay with normal cash nowadays.

Re:Digital currency

[smooth wombat]

When I whip out the greenbacks I'm not, as far as I know, treated as a terrorist. Everyone gladly accepts them as payment for the goods or services I am purchasing. Nor have I ever been stopped in or outside the store by anyone from the government questioning why I'm using cash.

However, I'm sure comments I've made about the gaping holes in TSA "security" have put me on a watch list somewhere so in that regard I am a terrorist because I dared to exercise my First Amendment rights.

Re:Digital currency

[codebonobo]

When I whip out the greenbacks I'm not, as far as I know, treated as a terrorist. Everyone gladly accepts them as payment for the goods or services I am purchasing. Nor have I ever been stopped in or outside the store by anyone from the government questioning why I'm using cash.

You will be treated like a terrorist, money laundering criminal or drug dealer if you are seen with as little as a couple thousand in greenbacks. Not only will you be unfairly profiled, but you will become guilty without trial while your cash is stolen from you until you can hire a lawyer to potentially reclaim it.

http://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/

http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/30/the-7-most-egregious-examples-of-civil-asset-forfeiture/

Cash is great, and the USD still has certain advantages over bitcoin(stability as a unit of account), but I would be much more comfortable carring around encrypted private keys to my bitcoins at a traffic stop or across state line than greenbacks

Re:Digital currency

[smooth wombat]

at a traffic stop

The solution then is to not get stopped by the police. Remember what The Transporter said:

Transportation is a precise business.

Don't speed down the road in a car with a broken tail light. As The Transporter also said:

I always say, the way a man treats his car is how he treats himself.

Considering I recently took a 3,500 mile round trip vacation across the middle of the country, I had no problems with not getting stopped. I could have been carrying thousands of greenbacks or anything else and no one would have known.

Re:Digital currency

[codebonobo]

Well, I agree that obeying the traffic laws , having a properly maintained vehicle, avoiding driving a really old car or a really expensive new car with certain characteristics like aftermarket rims. Additionally , it doesn't help to be racially profiled either, which is not an option for many. These are techniques to simply reduce the probability of having your money stolen through asset-forfeiture by not getting caught in the first place with large amounts of cash. This does nothing to remove the possibility that you will be treated like a terrorist or drug dealer if they do find large amounts of cash on you however. It would be interesting to study the data and see when they typically steal the money and what variables play into their decision.

Re:Digital currency

[godel_56]

at a traffic stop
The solution then is to not get stopped by the police. Remember what The Transporter said:
Transportation is a precise business.
Don't speed down the road in a car with a broken tail light. As The Transporter also said:
I always say, the way a man treats his car is how he treats himself.

Considering I recently took a 3,500 mile round trip vacation across the middle of the country, I had no problems with not getting stopped. I could have been carrying thousands of greenbacks or anything else and no one would have known.

At least in the US, if a cop asks if it's all right to look in your car or search your person, and they don't have good probable cause, politely SAY NO. Never resist but do not consent.

how to define "digital currency"

[sittingnut]

only a small portion of most currencies are in physical cash. vast portion of most currencies are balances in banks and other financial institutions. these days those are maintained digitally.
even in old days most accounts and currency transactions (in terms of amounts of currency involved, not actual number of transactions)were entries in account books carried out through other instruments than physical cash. these days even most of small transactions are entirely digital.

so "digital currencies would no longer be subject to Goods and Services Tax" needs some definition and explanation beyond political press release level.

   

Re:how to define "digital currency"

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

They taxed the currency exchange as a goods transaction, on top of taxing the actual item being sold (for bitcoins).

So it was a double taxation. Bitcoin kind of weasled its way into countries by being, at its heart, just another thing being traded (and stuff for stuff remains legal, just as stuff for real cash is).

Then dev communities said the double taxation was a scam, we are leaving, and government rightfully panicked as competition works.

Police State

[harryjohnston]

If Australia wants more foreign investment, they might want to stop the practice of arbitrarily imprisoning foreigners without any show of cause.