Subnostr

Maybe in your country but not in the US. Again how the hell would they even compute this? Average price, higest price, something else? And once they had taxed it once would they keep on taxing that same batch of BTC? How would they know it is the same?

Menno Reitse Bouma 1d ago

I havent studied the new proposal (apparently its for 2028 but still needs to be approved into law). Under the current system, you declare your assets in your yearly tax filing. You can of course try to leave certain assets out, but that would be illegal and the tax filing program is pre-filled more and more each year (so they have data links to banks etc).

If you go for the standard route, you are taxed based on the assumed return per asset class that you have invested in. So if you have 1K of savings, you declare that amount and that 1K in savings is assumed to have returned 1.44%, so you get taxed on 14,40 of assumed savings income.

Similarly, if you have 10K of equity or other assets (BTC falls in that category), you declare that amount and that is assumed to have earned 5.88%, so you get taxed on 588 of assumed income.

They then add up the assumed income from all asset categories and subtract the assumed interest on certain types of debt. That is the 'assumed net return' on which you are taxed 36% (this is all based on the 2025 rules). Oh and I cant forget to mention, the first 58K (single) or 115K (couple) of net assets (you can again subtract certain types of debt) is untaxed.

There is also a second option next to this 'assumed return approach'. If your actual return is lower than those assumed returns, you can opt out of the standard approach and have them tax you based on your actual returns.

Havent tried that myself yet though, so I dont know the full details there. There's not that much to tax on my end, so havent felt the need to dive into it 🥸 And I even think they are planning to automatically use this approach if your actual returns are lower than the assumed ones from 2025 or 2026 onwards.

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Discussion

MrTea 1d ago

What if you’ve lost 10%, do you get to claim that as a loss against your income at least?

Menno Reitse Bouma 1d ago

In the current system: no. But in the proposed new system which the original post is about, you will be able to carry forward losses to future tax years. So if you realize a loss in year 1 and a gain in year 2, you can carry the loss forward and pay less or no taxes (depending on the exact amounts of loss & gain) in year 2.

MrTea 20h ago

The new system sounds like an improvement then. I mean it’s kinda like choosing between a punch in the arm or a kick in the nuts. One is better but neither would be more ideal

Menno Reitse Bouma 10h ago

We'll see how it goes! Personally I would like a tax system mostly based on:

1) Consumption tax (VAT / energy tax / tolls for roads etc)

2) Combined with wealth tax, since you cant fully control your consumption patterns yourself, sometimes life just happens and it would be unfair to fully punish the individual for that imo, so having the most fortunate members of the group pay a higher group contribution via a wealth tax (incl. a decent exemption for low levels of wealth) seems fine to me and I'd gladly pay that wealth tax myself if it comes to it

3) A lower income tax to stimulate working, I get that we need investments (= wealth) to make it possible to work efficiently and innovate, but I feel like the balance between capital and labor has become kinda skewed. Probably something to do with fiat 🤪

1-3 above is just the way I would like it to be structured. There will then of course be a lot of details to decide on such as how much tax income should all of this generate and how can we minimize that amount, but still arrange all the things we want to arrange collectively. Not easy and every individuals will have a different answee. Definitely interesting to think about though, we'll see how it goes!

Menno Reitse Bouma 9h ago

*individual, answer. Man an edit button would be good 😂

sister_sam 10h ago

So losses only count if realized but gains count against you even if you never made a penny off those unrealized "gains"? Not exactly equitable to say the least.

Menno Reitse Bouma 10h ago

No, my bad, I should not have used the word "realize" there. If you have a loss in year 1 (whether realized or not) and a gain in year 2 (again, whether realized or not), you can carry forward the loss from year 1 to year 2.