While I understand your concerns and respect your opinion, I want to give my opinion that this might be a little bit exaggerated.Ewil wrote:This^^. It doesn't matter what the miners stance is on it, merely FILING it puts the miners information on a red flag considering the stance the government has regarding cryptocurrency - which changes as often as the wind does, at this point.Foxx wrote:yes, but you are also required to file any 1099 you issue, with the US authorities.Steve Sokolowski wrote:1099 forms have to be issued to users; there isn't any other way we are willing to operate. ...
... Before you get worried, these forms are not a statement that you owe a certain amount of tax, and we are not withholding earnings. This is standard practice for practically any business transaction, like when Chick-fil-a purchases chicken from its supplier. It is up to users to provide accurate information so that they can receive the documentation necessary for filing their own taxes. ...
The fact you think that currency generated in ones own home, using ones own equipment, should be taxed by the government, highlights your mentality - unfortunately. If I grow food in my own backyard, out of seed I bought - should I be taxed for having it? If I provide a service of working in someone elses farm to harvest their own food, and receive some in return for my hard work - should I be taxed on it?AppleMiner wrote:So be illegal miners, declare yourself as international miners. No data will be required and nothing will be mailed to you.
If you want to lie to the pool then I would guess the pool just can't be held responsible when the IRS comes back and asks them later why they didnt send you the required 1099 forms, and they can show, well this person opted in as an international miner so we weren't required, if they lied on the form its not our fault. I think its more an IRS liability. If you dont want to admit your US and get caught they have deniability they tried to comply with the data they were given by you.
But if you have in excess of 5 dozen ASICS I am guessing you are making some money, or paying some bills?
Not sure how you are moving that much around, hosting company and paying for it in crypto, but eventually you may want to cash in some of those coins. Do you think the bank wont notice 10K deposits or 4K electric bills coming and going monthly and start to investigate or ask about taxes?
I think coinbase turns in for US customers accounts that over 20K in use per year? they had a court case but did they start to volunteering that info for 20K and above to IRS since then?
If your answer is "yes, but of course" to either of those questions, I feel sorry for you.
I do not have 5 dozen ASICs. I said between myself and several friends & connections I have, we had that many running here. I have passed this information onto one of them whom is a moderator on a discord of 15k+ miners (among other servers), and has been doing mining since you could do it on a regular CPU. He laughed and said this place will be out of business before the end of next year, *or* operating with so few users, it'll be a ghost town. He's also shared this link & information to his many connections. The immediate responses are to vote with their money... international or not, many will not be mining here any longer once those changes go into effect, in order to send a message - in fact, some have already deleted prohashing as their backup pool.
@Steve, you are violating the very essence of what cryptocurrency is supposed to be - a decentralized, UNTRACEABLE currency that has no oversight, except within its own market by supply & demand. There will be literally nothing stopping the US government from giving you a year or two to operate, and then either demanding or directly seizing, via warrant, your entire blockchain wallet history, since you'd be so kind as to provide usernames, real names, addressed, etc via your system, and digitally signing & tracking every transaction on all the available blockchain networks, by your business history and bookkeeping. They can do this via your IRS filings, or by suddenly deciding everyone who deals in crypto is a criminal by association (as other countries have done) and since you're the sort of person to keep immaculately accurate books, would have zero issue tracking down every single person via their account information or IP and jailing/fining them/confiscating property.
I understand you are trying to run this in a new fashion that hasn't been seen before, as a business system - but you're putting many carts before the horse, and trying to bend over backwards to appease the very system that cryptos were put in place to go AGAINST. Maybe moving to Canada or another country would be beneficial for retaining your customer base, because I guarantee if you polled, via email, every one of your users if they are staying or leaving after this goes into effect - the results will blow your socks off, and not in a good way.
We aren't making a big moral stand in favor of governments or taxes or the US or any of that. We don't need social security numbers, despite what some have said. And I'm sure most people would say that it's highly unlikely that federal agents are going to start busting down doors of people who mine some cryptocurrencies. We're not going to send mountains of data to FBI agents.
We're simply filling out some paperwork that is required by law. It's going to take about 1 week to implement the fields, another week to collect the data, about $1000 to mail the forms, and then we'll forget about it all until next year. There will be no other changes. I think that it might be worth taking a step back and considering that it's possible this is not as big a deal as you think it is right now.