Well, if crypto by and large succeeds, do you expect that taxation will become impossible? In which case, wouldn't UBI be impossible? My thought is that UBI and the goals of crypto are contradicting.
Also, crypto will solve any and all problems that come about through automation, because it will give people a decentralized protocol to acquire the best prices... which will drop to near 0 due to automation
...And our labor will become our purchasing skill, not our producing skill. No UBI necessary.
But I think maybe swift doesn't actually fit the definition of UBI that I have in mind... Would there be coercion involved in any way?
Hmmm I mean we are getting onto different issues here but even if crypto gets mainstream adoption, that doesn't mean you can't apply taxes.
Profits from crypto for example are taxable, hence why there's the whole controversy over rising crypto prices after the tax returns month etc.
I see what you mean though about decentralization reducing the prices of things substantially, fair point, some level of income will still be necessary though.
There's no coercion in Swift AFAIK, you just get given the tokens, it's as simple as that. It's up to the individual as to whether they want to bother or not.
I see it as an experimental system that may or may not work, but surely the fundamental ideology of a basic income for all is something to be admired?
Are you sure about that? After all, crypto is just computer code, which legally counts as speech, and therefore cannot be taxed unless sold for USD. If not sold for USD (in the case of widespread adoption), it would be untaxable. So, profits may be taxable, but if crypto we're widely adopted, there wouldn't be taxes, because USD wouldn't come into the equation at all.
I personally don't think UBI is an admirable idea, because it relies on the existence of a sovereign or central authority to dole out wages. This is centralized and therefore inherently contradicting to the point of BTC.
There's no way they'd just let crypto be not taxed whatsoever lol, if they had to they'd just implement new laws to make sure they could tax crypto.
Okay so you don't like UBI as it's usually given by a central authority and therefore goes against decentralization. However, Swift tokens are given out by computer code. It's a decentralized system, the tokens are just distributed evenly to all participants every day. So in this case surely it's okay, no?
I think there's a place for a certain level of centralization anyway, I'm all for more decentralization, but sometimes centralization can make sense.
Governments might try to regulate crypto, but because of the way crypto is designed, they won't be able to tax or regulate it. It's main use so far has been to serve online black markets, lest we forget. Do you think those transactions were taxed by any government?
Also, centralization is fine, so long as everything is voluntary. It may not be as efficient, but it is not necessarily a bad thing, unless there is force/coercion involved.
I wish the best for the swift token, but I think the concept of UBI may not be the best way to talk about it's value.
I'm no expert but I still don't see how taxing crypto is an impossibility?
Yeah, coins like Monero it would be pretty impossible I guess, but bitcoin for example has a totally public ledger, all transactions can be traced and provided as evidence that tax needs to be repaid in some way, shape or form?
Well, in the US it's not technically taxable because the supreme Court determined that code is speech back in the 90's, and crypto is just code.
But the real reason BTC is not taxable unless sold is that it is not a nationalized form of capital, and exists solely on international cyberspace, and thus is not subject to any jurisdictional law. But even if it were, the law could not be enforced, because the location of the wallets and the security keys to access them are anonymous.
This article seems to state otherwise.
I'd be surprised if they couldn't find a way to enforce it, I know even recently the US government forced Coinbase to disclose financial information about their wealthiest users so that they could enforce captial gains tax laws on them.
BTC isn't even that untraceable, you'd only be able to get away with it if you never actually purchased anything from a company and all your purchases were through private individuals. Chances are, even if crypto is the future and fiat is no more, you're still going to have your identity linked to your wallets in some way.
BTC is just not that private, which can be seen as a good thing to be fair. If government funding was paid in BTC at least they'd have to be held publicly accountable for all of their spending habits.