If Facebook or Google create their own currency, they can control our lives

Re:If Facebook or Google create their own currency, they can... by brainwad on Monday June 24, 2019 @07:23AM (#20262325)

> which means Governments can't tax these goods and services

That's not true at all. Cash has the same problem of undeclared transactions, but the tax mostly still manages to get collected. If anything, the fact that Libra transactions will leave an electronic record makes it more likely that tax will get paid.

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Re:If Facebook or Google create their own currency, they can... by jki275 on Monday June 24, 2019 @08:17AM (#20262715)

I would hypothesize that cash transactions -- at least peer to peer transactions -- in general do not get taxed.

It's axiomatic that cryptocurrency transactions are rarely taxed, most people have not paid taxes on those transactions. The IRS is certainly trying to tax them, and the electronic ledger function of (some) cryptocurrencies will make it easier to track them under some circumstances than cash. That may change as time goes on -- I'm not sure enough how libra is implemented to have an opinion on that yet.

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Re:If Facebook or Google create their own currency, they can... by ascagnel_ on Monday June 24, 2019 @08:32AM (#20262841)

Even that opens another avenue of enforcement -- Al Capone was brought down on tax evasion charges, since all his earnings were from cash-only "transactions".

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